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?

The hatred towards minorities is terrifying. Black people, South Asians, and God forbid anyone posts a video of a female airline captain or a woman doing any other "male majority" job. It's like FB has a time machine and went back to Mississippi in the early '60s.

Yes! I feel terrified by it.

Plenty of comments about old white men . Imagine if it was the other way round

Our local paper - comments not even an hour old. Like I said upthread, even the national media don’t do anything to curb racism.

My screenshot is being checked but the comment is about “Enoch being right”.

Yeah that was a typo on my end. The original comment was ethnic cleansing.

Freedom of speech has nothing to do with private platforms.

Yep the online misogyny is absolutely terrifying.

Any video of a woman enjoying her life while single / childless / fat / divorced / exercising / travelling etc is just awash with abuse.

I am fully aware of the levels of misogyny snd racism in society. I don’t want to have to trip over people’s violent bigotry everywhere I turn.

I just want to be able to read a reel with useful tips for female travellers, or food fitness attire for fatties without a deluge of abuse.

I want to be able to look at an advert for Selfridges and the different clothes on showing without constantly tripping over abusing people for dating to date interracially.

Yep Black Square Summer was a great opportunity for me to cleanse my circle of acquaintances.

https://freespeechunion.org/facebook-dumps-fact-checkers-in-attempt-to-restore-free-speech/

facebook changed their moderating policies mid January

Yep - that’s a fairly standard comment on media.

I am for free speech in the broadest sense possible.

As a gender critical/sex realist woman I have experience harm in not being able to talk about feminism & woman's spaces. People who believe differently to me (people who think people can choose their sex, usually aligned with what we used to call "sex stereotypes") seek to suppress feminists from even discussing women's rights. I had years where I could not call a man a man. #BadTimes

I do not want my speech policed. I do not want to police others speech.

Who would be doing the speech controlling? Who decides what we can say?

We can't control people's thoughts and not should we.

I'd rather know who the racists and misogynists are thanks.

We gave laws in place re speech that incites violence etc. Let's use the existing laws properly.

You can only imagine? You realise women are constantly targeted too, right? The amount of horrific rape and violent threats I've had from men online over the years is insane, and nothing new.

Yes indeed, the mysogyny is equally vile and concerning. I'm lucky enough not have experienced any of these types of threats but obviously they hurt all women.

It's so much worse. My timeline is infiltrated with those "good old days" posts that have pictures of stuff like street urchins and all the comments being about when Britain was great and how there were non white people which apparently was much better than rampant child labour, diphtheria and typhoid.

Yes. It's the wild west. It's more and more gross, mean and dangerous comments. I use it for messenger and the community groups but it's not a pleasant place to be. I think I've reported threats to beat people up, comparisons of women to dogs, a picture of genitalia. That's all fine. I defriended a cousin and an uncle for racist comments. At least I can control that!

I am a gender critical feminist too. I am a woman but I am also black. Add in childfree too and disabilities and I'm exposed to continual hate. That is really unhealthy so I find myself isolating from these platforms. There are facts and then there are things said to just exclude people and make them feel inferior. Imagine continually having to face that? I just want to exist in peace. And these people making the inflammatory posts always think free speech flows in one direction. If you have the freedom to say anything then others have the freedom to respond.

I do agree there is a problem with policing what people say but there is also a problem with being on the receiving end continually of hate speech. It is completely disheartening.

The problem is, is that
A) A lot of it produced by bots. No idea who they are.
B) inciting violence and promoting hatred leads to real life violence and hatred (see summer riots, increase in violent acts to PoC)
C) it normalises these vile views.

Both Christianity and Islam state homosexuality is a sin. I am an atheist, not homophobic and agree this was an inappropriate comment underneath a story about a boy who won an award for supporting other gay young people. However, how far should we go in censoring people's religious beliefs? The Pope might have not phrased it the same way but that's basically what he believes too.

I've given up reporting as they never get removed.
My example
Rubbish pages like daily Mail love writing about travellers, obviously leading to hundreds of hideously racist comments aimed at us.
These people aren't worth arguing with but I used to report the comments, but they never got taken down.

I get these too. Photos of old Britain full of racist comments. I actually think a lot of the old Britain posts are created by Russian bots. One day, there were several postings of the same photo all by different groups called things like "The way it used to be." It's like Russian bots were firing out the same nostalgic photos over and over again. Of course the racists were taking the bait and saying "It breaks my heart what's happened to this country. Doesn't look like England anymore".

I find "comments" invariably horrendous. Wherever they are posted. So I very rarely read them. It's quite easy not to read them if you choose not to go there.

I choose not to read the insane ramblings of lunatics online. Because I get upset & I don't want to take myself there.

We can make many choices to self curate our online experiences and minimise our exposure to the online dickheads.

I do think FB has had its time. I do still have an account but I rarely use it now - for many of the reasons posted here.

I agree with you but want to say that plenty of women join in the racist commenting too. I'd say nearly half the comments I've seen on Facebook and X are from women.

@FedupMum2024

"We are all entitled to an opinion"

So you think it's ok for people to freely express that women deserve to be raped and sex with children isn't as harmful as it's made out to be?

You don't think it would change something in society that would put women and children at risk if we showed increasing tolerance of these opinions?

Definitely true re: women. I guess it just seems far more men. But definitely I notice lots of racist women too (especially older / middle aged ones.)