A post containing a former employee's criticism toward Facebook was briefly removed from the platform this week, which the author says only underscores his points.
On Tuesday, Facebook took down the widely read post by former Facebook strategic partner manager Mark Luckie after it was reportedly flagged as violating the platform's community standards.
Last month, Luckie drew international attention with his note, entitled "Facebook is failing its black employees and its black users," which offered in-depth, first-hand criticism of the company's culture, methods, and behavior toward black workers and users.
On Twitter, Luckie shared screenshots from this week's incident, which show that Facebook's moderation force agreed to reinstate the post after reviewing it.
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Turns out Facebook took down my post challenging discrimination at the company, disabling users’ ability to share or read it. Further proves my point. pic.twitter.com/XOKfNIFSs2
— Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie) December 4, 2018
In addition to describing systemic weaknesses, cultural confusion, and racial profiling at Facebook headquarters, Luckie's note argued that Facebook's efforts to exert more control over its content have unfairly penalized black users, "despite them often not violating Facebook’s terms of service." He wrote, “Their content is removed without notice. Accounts are suspended indefinitely.”
Following the post's removal on Tuesday, Luckie commented on Twitter that the company's swift removal of the post (whether ill-considered or accidental) "further proves [his] point."
Facebook's content moderation system has faced increasing scrutiny over the past year as concerns about information and/or election manipulation have surfaced alongside repeated claims from activists and other groups that they're being unfairly shut out.
Such groups include international and US political activists, platform users of color, and artists whose work deals with such politically charged subjects as women and weed.
A representative for Facebook said the company is working to determine exactly what happened, at which time it will provide comment.
[h/t VentureBeat]
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