INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Authors: TheIndianSubcontinent News AgencyImage copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Facebook says it is trialling new
ways for users to interact with content
"Does this post contain hate speech"That is the message that thousands of Facebook
users have reported seeing on their news feeds
It seems to be only US-based users that can see the question, which is appearing under every post on their Facebook page.While some have
criticised the social media giant for the move, others are calling it a bug and pointing out the more unusual places where they have seen it
appear.A Facebook spokesperson said they were unable to comment at this time.You may also like:If users click "yes" to respond that the post
does contain hate speech, they are presented with four options for feedback
These options are "hate speech", "test p1", "test p2" and "test p3", prompting some people to suggest that the form "clearly wasn't
supposed" to appear on Facebook in its current form.Yet the hate speech button was criticised as suppression by some, with American writer
Matt Walsh calling it an intentional move by Facebook to remove "conservative content".This is in light of accusations from Republican
congressman Steve Scalise that Facebook's algorithm was discriminating against conservative news and content in favour of liberal posts.And
Lebanese-American journalist Brigitte Gabriel labelled it an attempt by Facebook to "censor" her account
But as others noticed the button appearing on all of the posts in their timeline, people began to share the funniest place they had seen the
button appear.Such places include posts about local churches, articles about Donald Trump, and even pictures which show the weather
forecast.And Washington Post journalist Gene Park shared this suggestion that a photo of a puppy might be somehow hateful.This comes as
Facebook hosts its biggest event ever, with 5,000 developers flying in from around the world for the F8 developer conference on May 1-2.This
prompted social media journalist Matt Navarra to joke that even Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg was not exempt from the hate speech
button.By Tom Gerken, UGC Social News
