So many posts giving news about jihad activity have been flagged by Facebook as “hate speech” because there are private Facebook groups composed of orthodox Muslims and Antifa that infiltrate other Facebook groups, pages such as ours, and personal profiles. They pick on a specific post and mass report it as “hate speech,” an option that can be easily found on the top right of any post. Their punishments, last time I checked, were 48 hours’ suspension for the first offence, 7 days for the second, a month for the third, and then you’re off Facebook for good.
There is an automated system at Facebook that takes a number of characteristics into account in evaluating these mass reports. There are trigger words they look for; “rape” is high on the list, as is “jihad,” as well as “Islam” and any other word they deem sensitive. These words are included in the algorithm, along with the identity of the poster who is being reported, how many followers this poster has, and the quantity of reports they get compared to the number of viewers who did not report it.
Other easy targets, apart from the trigger words they mention, that are easily mass reported are images of ISIS flags and swastikas. If the intention of your post is to report on the hate these symbols represent, a manual review by Facebook will work. Your intention does need to be obvious; just posting a picture of Hizballah doing their Roman salutes without context will get you a ban. I might know why you posted it, but the reviewer might not.
If I had posted the article that got flagged as “hate speech” on my boring personal profile, with my half a dozen followers (I avoid Facebook), it’s likely only one or 2 reports would have triggered a community strike such as this. This was actually Robert Spencer’s personal page that was reported. On the Jihad Watch page, we haven’t seen any reports that needed review for the last few years, although I know it’s continually mass reported (I have infiltrated their groups). They don’t need to make me go through this review process; Jihad Watch has been “shadow banned” since February 2016, that’s a totally different level of censorship.
Marc Louis’s post goes against our Community Standards on hate speech
Only people who manage Robert Spencer can see this post.
We have these standards because we want discussions on Facebook to be respectful.
Of course this post is not even close to hate speech. It’s an uncomfortable truth, as well as a warning of what can happen if violent criminals following a doctrine that advocates the rape of unbelievers goes unchecked. The bulk of the article is from a news source. There is no suggestion that it is untrue or and it doesn’t call for hatred of anyone. It was flagged as “hate speech” purely because of the inclusion of the word “rape,” which is one of Facebook’s higher-rated trigger words.
The reason these organised mass reporting groups do this is to cause me to lose my account at Facebook; they have tried this dozens of times, unsuccessfully.
So I click through to continue, to read the details of my alleged crime:
Our standards on hate speech
We define hate speech as language that attacks people based on their:
-
- • Race, ethnicity, national origin or caste
- • Religious affiliation
- • Sexual orientation
- • Sex, gender or gender identity
- • Serious disabilities or diseases
We sometimes allow things we’d otherwise consider hate speech: for example when someone shares someone else’s hate speech to raise awareness about it, or uses a word in reference to themselves.
But this post is not attacking anyone for any of these reasons, only for their criminal behaviour, and the insane behaviour of the authorities who are in effect blaming the victim.
So I continue (they really should have a skip button, I’ve read this so many times):
What you can do
Because Marc Louis’s post goes against our Community Standards on hate speech, only people who manage Robert Spencer can see it. Let us know what you’d like to do.
Let Others Decide
Other people who manage the Page will be able to request review.
Request Review
We’ll take another look at the post and update other people who manage the Page.
I’ll be requesting a review today, double-checking to make sure that there really was nothing that could be argued went against their community standards. I get this confirmation:
Review Requested
We’ll send an update once our review team has taken another look. Only people who manage Robert Spencer can see this post while it’s in review.
The thing is, a human at FaceBook has to look at this and make a judgment, he knows this is a tough one, he can also see I have had dozens of these mass reports in the past, all proven to be unfounded, with many of the reporters having their own credibility downgraded due to making false reports. So a few hours later, it is no surprise that we have the post re-instated along with an apology.
If you are sure you have not posted something that could really be seen as hateful by any reasonable person, it’s always worth asking for review. It can be a fine line, things can be misinterpreted and sarcasm should always be used carefully, but if you just don’t have that hate in your heart, as I know Robert does not, you should be good.
I get a lot of emails from people who say they were banned for posting something. I hope this explains better how the reporting machine works from our point of view, and what you can do to defend yourself.





mortimer says
Thanks for this illuminating description of the rigged system, Marc. We ordinary, non-tech-expert people do not have all the knowledge, skill and experience you have, so we are bewildered and Facebook, twitter and youtube techies know they can plow us into the earth, because we have no clue what they are doing or how they are doing it.
Project Veritas has proved that the Big Three are running down as many conservative-thinking people as possible, because they hire low-paid foreign temporary workers who hate United States, Americans and the West in general. I have read that someone who promotes the American flag is likely to be banned. Prager did a video promoting the Ten Commandments and it was banned because it contained the word ‘murder’. (If Leftist posts contained the word ‘murder’, I’m sure it would be just fine with them.)
There we are. I personally believe that the only answer to this is to have a committee formed by a number of people from different points of view and political affiliations to review any decisions and adjudicated by a former judge with expertise in the freedom of expression. This would satisfy most critics.
But a body of censors policed by the commanders of the censors who hired the censors is hardly a neutral decision-making body.
These Big-Tech rules of censorship were not voted on by any of the people being affected and sneeringly persecuted by these arbitrary and crafty rules and their cynical creators.
marc says
“Prager did a video promoting the Ten Commandments and it was banned because it contained the word ‘murder’. (If Leftist posts contained the word ‘murder’, I’m sure it would be just fine with them.)”
I think the issue is in many cases we don’t leverage the system in our favor, we don’t have the same mass reporting groups they do, socialists and muslims are just better at the organization of such actions. I’ve worked with a vet group that worked on exposing ISIS groups and getting them banned on FB and youtube with reporting, but was a couple of years ago.
I did try hard to make this post as easily read by non-techies as I could, was any aspect hard to understand, I do miss the point sometimes as I am used to working with machines and code and may not do “human” so well?
Mark Swan says
marc, you always “do human” very well, thank you for the above article.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Marc–and you “do human” just fine.
Jim Hane says
We the use the same rules and their system to attack Islamic sites! Infiltrate them and click “Hate Speech” on the violent verses in the Koran and hadiths!
There’s lots of hate speech there.
Keys says
Thank you, Marc. Helpful post for me !
This blocking is a critical free-speech issue that must be addressed.
Henry jones says
Marc are you the one who does security for jihadwatch.org site / domain?
marc says
Yes, pretty much the whole site less the actual content is my doing.
gravenimage says
+1
dumbledoresarmy says
And you’re doing a terrific job, mate. Thank you. And God bless you and yours.
jwash3rd says
That’s what they do. I was suspended from twitter for using the word tranny. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t get me for islamosavage.
Anne says
We are losing our unique status as a nation of free speech. I heard a lecturer say in England if you say Islam is a dangerous religion, the police will be knocking on your door that evening. Is that what’s coming here?
Ira Blacker says
Nonsense as Facebook bans people who they deem are a “threat to their way of thinking”. THEY will tell you how to think. They just banned me three times in a row with only hours between each one, FOR NO REASON AT ALL, other than I was “POSTING WHILE JEWISH”, having 15,000 followers and friends, and informing the low info voter about facts of the day. Several years ago I used a slang word for Muslim, Muzzy. A year ago when they banned me for it then, I searched and deleted every single reference to the word until all searches came up empty. Nevertheless as they “deem me a threat to the Islamic/Socialist version of truth, they cull up a post from “their archive” that is not available to be seen online and is 4-5 years old, they use that to ban me. NOW, if you can tell me how to deal with this, as they laugh when I protest, or who in government who has some clout, let me know, as the above will not help me. PS, i daily post articles from Jihad Watch, so kindly let me know if you can help stop Kapo Zuckerberg’s Jihad on me and others.
marc says
you have some mass reporters following you, from what I’ve seen, it’s related to keywords used on the post. Also, try blocking muslim majority countries like pakistan, saudi, malaysia etc.