Facebook Decides That It Will Allow Some Satire — But It Must Be ‘Layered, Complex, or Subversive’

 

Facebook has announced that they are finally working on allowing satire on the site, as long as it is not hateful and “layered, complex, or subversive.”

The announcement came in response to a decision from the Oversight Board regarding a meme depicting the nation of Turkey having to choose between “The Armenian Genocide is a lie” and “The Armenians were terrorists who deserved it.”

“The Facebook company took down this content for violating our policy on hate speech, as laid out in the Facebook Community Standards. We do not allow hate speech on Facebook, even in the context of satire, because it creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases, may promote real-world violence,” Facebook said in a statement at the time of the ban.

The meme has now been reinstated in response to the Board’s decision that it was unjust censorship. Facebook said that it will now “add information to the Community Standards that makes it clear where we consider satire as part of our assessment of context-specific decisions.”

However, the whole thing may be no laughing matter as Facebook still decides what is funny, or not.

The Big Tech giant specified: “[I]f content is simply derogatory, not layered, complex, or subversive, it is not satire. Indeed, humor can be an effective mode of communicating hateful ideas.”