Facebook has apologized to a Texas newspaper after flagging a post containing text from the Declaration of Independence as “hate speech.”
As Breitbart News reported Wednesday:
Facebook removed an excerpt from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, claiming the text violated the social network’s policies on “hate speech.”
The Liberty County Vindicator had been uploading the Declaration of Independence in parts to their Facebook page, only for the tenth part to be removed by the social network.
The following portion of text was excised by Facebook as constituting “hate speech”:
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Casey Stinnett, managing editor of the Liberty County Vindicator, suspects the term “Indian Savages” might have triggered Facebook’s “filtering program.” He said the censorship was an “automated action.”
Stinnet wrote: “This is frustrating, but your editor is a historian, and to enjoy the study of history a person must love irony. It is a very great irony that the words of Thomas Jefferson should now be censored in America.”
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.
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