The more and more racist comments are being allowed to stand on FB

[JimandPam]

I am still a pretty frequent user of FB and find it useful for keeping in touch with overseas family and also part of hobby groups/kids days out ideas etc

I've always been a part of my local community Facebook and whilst most of the time comments/posts are in good faith, I've noticed more and more vile posts that are either racist or homophobic. I always report them using the appropriate tools

However, over the last 6 months I've noticed these comments are allowed to stand and I don't understand why

Two recent examples:
A community post about bad driving in a notorious spot in our town. I reported two comments

1. X Town used to be nice before all of Africa moved in
2. Never had this problem when they used to be on jam jars

After taking 30 days to review I've been told that neither of these comments break their community guidelines. What?? I've reopened them and added comments but I'm finding this more and more that my reporting is not being upheld

I know the simple answer is to use FB less but I'm seeing this all over SM where hateful comments are reported but not taken down.

AIBU to think the above should have simply been removed on reporting them or am I going mad?

Tiktok is the same, I reported a comment saying something along the lines of ethical cleansing should be brought back and I got a report back "no violation found". I actually reported it again under a different reason and again same response. Apparently that's not classed as hate speech, I can't remember the other report topic I chose

But then I commented on a video calling someone stupid and my comment got removed for breaking community guidelines.

It's ridiculous.

Freedom of speech.

We are all entitled to an opinion.

Racism under the guise of “Free Speech” apparently we can all say what we want now, without any consequence.
Just tell a “free speech” racist you think (with no evidence) that’s he’s a sex offender - which they don’t like.
Then you tell them you are exercising your right to “free speech without consequence”
See how supportive they are of “free speech” then.

Twitter is crazy now.

Open racism (in all directions), sexism, conspiracy theories, extreme violence and sexual content.

Really awful.

Someone needs to set up a social media network for exclusively positive to neutral content.

I sometimes wonder if people who post this kind of horrible racist stuff in some ways should have it stay there, for future employers to see, and so their neighbours and friends can see what kind of person they are. I think using this sort of statement they only reflect badly on themselves.

BlueSky

I left Twitter months ago, on Bluesky now .. so much better.

Do you have examples of homophobic comments?

Oh, here we go.
Do you have example of /define homophobic/racism/insert flavour of bigotry here?
It's the same pattern, always

FB has ALWAYS been full of racist comments.

Always. And yes - I basically don’t even bother reading comments on any news articles now as it’s just filled with edge lord white men and boys (overwhelmingly) being massively racist.

Even on benign stories. And god forbid it’s an advert of story featuring a mixed race couple….- YIKES!

Instagram is the same. Even the Sewell report acknowledge that online racism is out of control.

Free speech is not an excuse for being a horrible racist though. Thankfully people are taking action and forwarding racist comments to their employer. I've seen at least one (lecturer at that) get fired from his job. I've also seen some racist comments on a Zara fb ad featuring two little girls of mixed race. Comments reported and been found to 'not be in breach of their standards' blah, blah, blah. One monster even commented that is the reason she doesn't shop at Zara any more! Because of little children of colour modelling for them! Is that freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is about government censure - not rules private platforms have about respectful conduct.

Pardon? I asked for the kind of examples OP sees as homophobic.

Chill yourself out sweetheart!

I haven’t had facefuck for years, hate the platform. One thing you can guarantee about mumsnet is that they monitor content, which is reassuring.

I asked for the kind of examples OP sees as homophobic
Yes, which always leads to if someone shares an example of racism/homophobia they've experienced/seen, the person immediately jumps in and tells them that no, actually, they're mistaken and it's not that at all and to try again.
If that's not what you were doing, apologies and as you were.....

FB was better when all I saw was the content of friends and family I chose to follow. So no sexism or racism. Now these sites insist on showing you random stories and it’s pure racism.

I saw a very nice reel about a young black teenaged boy doing something nice and romantic for his young white girlfriend at a sports event (he played american football ball at his high school).

Nice and wholesome and yet the comments were full of adult men hurling all kinds of vitriol at them.
Those comments were fine. I called somebody racist and my comment was removed from
breaching the instagram code of conduct.

Ridiculous!

Are you advocating for Absolute free speech, where anything can be said without any consequences) or do you accept there must be some constraints?

Ads with mixed couples / mixed children really bring out the racists.

Hardly surprising given Zuckerberg’s toadying to Trump.
Never been on any SM platforms, other than this one. All pretty much cesspits. This one is getting worse, too.

It’s very difficult to keep reading objections to the level of immigration, people feeling their communities undermined and the streets not safe.

I have reported full on porn and a few scammers on fb, always get a response that no rules are broken so I am not surprised at all.

@JimandPam I was using my partners phone yesterday to look for something on marketplace because I hate facebook. Anyway (he was with me and we aren't precious about phones anyway) but I scrolled his news feed and felt depressed afterwards.

Every comment section was fucking vile, DP said its always that way and he won't comment on things any more.

Racism was the most prevalent, homophobic, vile misogyny and disgusting comments about women's appearance including aging and weight. The daily mail comments about a beautiful actress who is about a size 12 with her boyfriend, comments such as "did she eat him?" All from absolute stunners themselves.

People seem to have developed this sense of entitlement to say vile things about people over the Internet because its not face to face.

I think one of the cruellest things social media does is give people a platform to say despicable things and nobody seems to care.
I left FB when my local town group were disgusting about a minority group who add more value to my town and work harder than any of the gobby fuckers spouting hate.

I miss the days when if you called someone horrible names you'd get their older siblings kicking off at you 😂

I think full freedom of speech is good.

If someone comments in a racist way, we can all see. We can't change the way they think by stopping them from commenting.

We can't stop men being misogynistic but if the comments appear they can be debated.

The problem with stopping people commenting is that it means someone decides what is 'right speech'. For example, being about to say that I don't believe men can change in to women. This is ' wrong speech'...Who decided this?

On the various town Facebook groups I am on examples would be something like an advert for a Pride event and the comments would be...

• when do we get a straight event
• why does the rainbow brigade think we care
• urrgh why can't they keep these things private

etc. Then you get some bloke tagging his mates to make "hilarious" jokes about "perfect night out for you cos you like a bit of bumming".

It's all just so pathetic.