Joint Center Participates in Civil Rights X Tech Convening on Navigating Hate Speech on Social Media

On September 26, Joint Center President Spencer Overton attended Change the Terms Coalition (CTT) and Color Of Change’s day-long event, Civil Rights X Tech Convening 2019, with Facebook in Atlanta, GA. The discussion focused on how the social media platform can better navigate freedom of expression with posts that have racist language and misinformation.

The event included “panels and one-on-one conversations for civil rights leaders to bring their lived experience with online hate, and expertise on how to most efficiently mitigate it, to Facebook’s leadership team, including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.”

Change the Terms Co-Founder and Free Press Vice President Jessica González (remarks here) and Center for American Progress Fellow and Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and Change the Terms member (remarks here) prepared a speech for the event as well. Free Press also provided a “full analysis of Facebook’s step to change their policies and practices to reduce hate, and where they fall short.” Recommendations include adopting “model language to say that ‘users may not use these services to engage in hateful activities or use these services to facilitate hateful activities engaged in elsewhere, whether online or offline’,” having “content moderation involve a combination of technological solutions as well as human review, with regular audits of both the technology and human efforts,” and allowing users to appeal “material impairment, suspension or termination of service” with a review done by a “neutral decision-maker.”

See more photos from the event below.