A mysterious glitch on Facebook asked if every single post was 'hate speech'

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A mysterious glitch on Facebook asked if every single post was 'hate speech'

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facebook ceo mark zuckerberg

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

  • Facebook started to ask some users if posts were 'hate speech' on Tuesday.
  • It appeared to be a glitch because the question was asked below every single post on some user feeds.
  • Some people thought they were being censored by Facebook. 

At about 11 a.m Eastern time on Tuesday, people started to notice a really odd new question on Facebook.

On some people's News Feeds, Facebook was asking if every single post was "hate speech." Business Insider observed the glitch on one of our accounts. 

Here's what it looked like: 

hate speech

Business Insider

Screen Shot 2018 05 01 at 11.33.15 AM

Business Insider

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Screen Shot 2018 05 01 at 11.34.25 AM

Business Insider

Screen Shot 2018 05 01 at 11.38.03 AM

Business Insider

The glitch was resolved before 12 p.m. and the question no longer appeared on a News Feed seen by Business Insider. Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for more information.

Facebook has struggled with hate speech on its platform. Last week, it published its previously secret guidelines for censors for the first time. CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes one day to have artificial intelligence algorithms handle much of Facebook's content moderation needs. 

But artificial intelligence needs data so it can be trained. Data from actual users identifying hate speech may be useful in that development process. 

Here's how people on Twitter reacted to the question: 

 

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