Woman gets Facebook timeout for 'men are dumb' comment, labled as 'hate speech'
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - A Metro Detroit woman was banned for 24 hours from the world's largest social media site after she wrote a comment in response to a meme asking 'why are men are so stupid'.
Candace King said she was banned from Facebook for one day after her response to a meme about nail polish and men. The meme suggests women will notice a difference in two different shades of purple and, in the comments section, it turned into men not being able to notice the difference.
"I posted on there 'this is a different color, why are men so stupid' and then 5 seconds later, the comment just disappeared and I was like what’s going on," she said. "At first I thought it was a joke (and) I’m like yeah right I’m blocked..what? But it was real, for sure."
It's no joke. A message from Facebook said her comment doesn't follow community standards for hate speech and she was barred from the platform for 24 hours.
The post actually said 'why are men so dumb'.
"I’ve seen way worse than something silly like that - about nail polish, " she said.
According to Facebook, the company defines hate speech as a direct attack against people rather than concepts or institutions based on protected characteristics, like gender. Candace said the problem is with Facebook's review process which isn't done by a human.
"I feel like it’s a comment in jest and maybe if an actual person was reviewing this stuff, it might not. But I think most of it is just with Facebook algorithms," Candace said.
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Facebook does give you a chance for rebuttal with a disagree button but Candace said that doesn't do much.
"When you click it, it says that due to COVID that they don’t really have anybody reviewing it so it goes to nowhere," she said.
By Friday, Candace was back on Facebook and reiterates she's definitely not a man-hater. But she will need to watch her comments because something similar could be a longer ban.
"I got the warning that if I do it again, the punishment will be more severe," Candace said.