I received a message from Facebook this morning informing me that one of my comments went against their community standards on hate speech. They removed my comment so no one else can see it. They went on to say they want discussions on Facebook to be respectful.
What group of people did Facebook find me engaging in hate speech against? White Guys.
Here is a screenshot of the message from Facebook:
To clarify, I am a white guy. My father is a white guy. His father? He was a white guy too. I come from a long line of white guys going back centuries to our ancestral homeland, Whiteguyastan. I think it’s somewhere in Europe.
My comment was not made in a vacuum. It was made in response to the racially divisive Kotoku headline I saw on Facebook:
I thought the headline was an obvious attempt at trolling white guys like me. I felt it implied there was something inherently wrong with being a white guy. It’s a sentiment I’ve seen expressed a lot lately.
I could have replied by accusing Kotaku of engaging in anti-white, anti-male sentiment, but I think that’s what the Kotaku editor wanted when they wrote the headline. I think they were looking to troll people like me. I decided to expand on what the headline said and wholeheartedly agree with its implicit message. I wanted to use Kotaku’s own divisive momentum against them. Like Hapkido, but with words.
And for that, I get accused of engaging in hate speech against my own people.
Facebook is terrible. If it wasn’t for Candy Crush Saga, I would delete my profile from Facebook. Then again, if I deleted Facebook, I wouldn’t know who Russia wanted me to vote for in presidential elections.
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