Ninety three percent of all posts reported as hate speech on Facebook in India are not removed and half of those posts initially removed are later restored, a new research report has found, signaling possible loopholes in content moderation. The report also added that the maximum chunk of hate speech was Islamophobic (37%), followed by false news (16%) and posts targeting gender/sexuality (13%) and caste (13%). For example, it found 1/4th of gender/sexuality hate speech was anti LGBT, and half of these called for rape and other forms of sexual violence. Forty percent of caste-based hate speech attacked caste-based reservations while the rest comprised of caste slurs, anti-Ambedkar messages, among others. “It is absolutely negligent that Facebook does not have a specific means for reporting casteist hate speech,” Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, added.

Source: Hindustan Times June 13, 2019 01:40 UTC