Facebook Algorithm Finds Declaration of Independence “Racist”

In a run-up to Independence Day, Texan community paper The Liberty County Vindicator posted daily snippets of the Declaration of Independence on its Facebook page in the hopes of encouraging historical literacy among its readers.

However, Facebook’s algorithm had reportedly took down several excerpts which it considered to be hate speech. In particular, Part 10, which mentioned “merciless Indian savages” got taken down with a notice from Facebook saying the post went against its standards on hate speech.

Facebook later on restored the deleted part and issued a statement about the incident saying: “The post was removed by mistake and restored as soon as we looked into it. We process millions of reports each week, and sometimes we get things wrong.”

Source: BBC