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NC Sheriff's Office Facebook page suspended after flag post (1 Viewer)

ekbeats

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Happy Birthday America!

Madison County Sheriff's Office Facebook page suspended after flag post
 

Caption: Madison County Sheriff's Office Facebook page suspended after flag post, sheriff says

Harwood said authorities discovered their Facebook page was suspended Tuesday, following a post the department made in defense of the American flag and a local business. 

In the lengthy Facebook post, the Madison County Sheriff's Office talks about the meaning of the American flag, including a well-known poem by Ruth Apperson Rous titled, "I am the Flag."

Harwood showed News13 a screenshot of the only reasoning he said the department has received from Facebook regarding the blocking, which reads, "If you think this doesn't go against our Community Standards, let us know."

Harwood said the department made the flag post in support of the owner of Madison Pharmacy, who was criticized by a member of the community for flying an American flag outside her business. He said it's unbelievable that such a post would get taken down by Facebook.

"Yeah, I'm offended. My God, we've got lives that have been lost, battles that have been fought for this country, for the United States of America," Harwood said.

He said the suspension is concerning, because the department uses Facebook to share vital information with the community.

"It's not going to affect the day-to-day operations of this office one bit. What it is going to affect is folks in Western North Carolina receiving pertinent information that they need in a timely fashion," Harwood said.

He said Facebook has become a useful avenue for sharing public safety information.

"If we've got an armed robbery, if we've got a rape suspect running up and down the roads, that's always been, Facebook has been a very informative website, social media site we could go to and disseminate that information," Harwood said. "Sure, it's concerning. But who wants to put up with this kind of junk?"

The Madison County Sheriff's Office won't be putting up with it any longer, the sheriff said.

"Oh, I'm done with Facebook. I know Facebook won't shut down, but the Madison County Sheriff's Office is done with Facebook," he said. "It's time we stand up and say, 'Hey, we've had enough.'"

He said the department plans to create its own website to disseminate important information and will continue to rely on local media partners.

"We're fixing to celebrate Independence Day and people are offended about flying the flag. I don't understand," Harwood said.

But it may not have been a someone who suspended the office's Facebook page, but rather a something. Scott Rader, an associate professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Western Carolina University, said Facebook doesn't have enough people to monitor all the content on its platform, so it has an algorithm that pores through content, likely searching for key words or phrases that might violate its "Community Standards." He said that could be what's to blame here.

"I think there's a good likelihood that what's happened here is the idea that a software algorithm has caught something that it thinks in some way violates Facebook's community guidelines. And so, it's an automatic process that's happened is my suspicion," Rader said.

After reading screenshots of the now-removed post, Rader said he doesn't see what could be found offensive about it, no matter your political leaning.

"I don't believe, in my opinion, l that any reasonable person would find a problem with that post," Rader said.

Rader said social media censorship is on the increase.

"The interesting issue that you're going to run into increasingly is that censorship has become more common in the past year," Rader said.

While Facebook is a private entity that largely has a right to control the information on its network, Rader said it gets tricky when the platform begins censoring government accounts, particularly ones that disseminate important information, like the Madison County Sheriff's Office. He said Facebook may need to reexamine its algorithm and believes that will likely happen soon, as more and more complaints of censorship arise.

"If you think of it like a dial, Facebook can basically increase or decrease the scrutiny, if you will, of the algorithm in terms of what it takes down," Rader said. "They should probably go back and look at that algorithm, in my opinion, and see what's causing these, what we would call a false positive, in other words, something was taken down that shouldn't have been," he said.

News13 has reached out to Facebook's public relations team for comment. This story will be updated once we hear back.

 
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Typically don't do the "culture wars faux outrage" thing, but will play along for a minute.

First, where is the actual FB post? It's hard to give an opinion without being able to read it. The link is to an article and a video, but no text of the post itself. I guess I need to pause the video and magnify it or something to read it, but kind of odd the actual FB post isn't a more prominent feature of the story, considering that's what the story is about.

Second, without the benefit of reading it. Police departments need to stay out of politics. Spokesman says the Facebook page is a way to get breaking information out to the public. Then don't conflate a public service page with politics. What's next, police department doesn't respond unless they agree with your politics? 

 
Facebook uses algorithms is my understanding and they sometimes get this wrong.

The flip side is that you are public servant, keep your damn political opinions on your own personal page.  That's the only thing wrong with this story in my books.  I like him whining about not using facebook anymore even though he says it's critical for department business.  Grow up you baby.  Do your actual job

 
I am seeing on Twitter some comments that the suspension may have been due to a copyright issue of the poem quoted that the Facebook algorithm caught, not the content of the post itself.

In any event, we won't know the real reason until Facebook issues some sort of explanation. 

 
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Facebook uses algorithms is my understanding and they sometimes get this wrong.

The flip side is that you are public servant, keep your damn political opinions on your own personal page.  That's the only thing wrong with this story in my books.  I like him whining about not using facebook anymore even though he says it's critical for department business.  Grow up you baby.  Do your actual job
The bolded could probably cover 90% of the "culture war faux outrage" nonsense. 

 
I feel bad now.  Looks like I triggered a whole bunch of people with this story.  Sorry guys, just thought it was interesting with it hitting a couple of hot topics - Big Tech censorship and the controversy on the American flag. 

 
I feel bad now.  Looks like I triggered a whole bunch of people with this story.  Sorry guys, just thought it was interesting with it hitting a couple of hot topics - Big Tech censorship and the controversy on the American flag. 
Doesn't matter what the thread title or OP is.  Rarely make's it into double digit posts before the regulars just have to bring up Big Orange.  You can set your watch to it.

 
I feel bad now.  Looks like I triggered a whole bunch of people with this story.  Sorry guys, just thought it was interesting with it hitting a couple of hot topics - Big Tech censorship and the controversy on the American flag. 
The problem is we don't know why the FB page was taken down

 
The problem is we don't know why the FB page was taken down
Because Facebook wouldn’t reply to the media about it.  What we do have is the post in question which is completely innocuous.  We also have an expert on social media who reviewed the post and said there was nothing controversial in there and nothing that should have tripped any algorithms.

Once again, sorry for bringing it up.  I have to be more cognizant of how the American flag triggers so many in here.  Maybe that’s why Facebook banned the post.  Big Tech knows best.

 
Because Facebook wouldn’t reply to the media about it.  What we do have is the post in question which is completely innocuous.  We also have an expert on social media who reviewed the post and said there was nothing controversial in there and nothing that should have tripped any algorithms.

Once again, sorry for bringing it up.  I have to be more cognizant of how the American flag triggers so many in here.  Maybe that’s why Facebook banned the post.  Big Tech knows best.
I didnt see the post in question in the article.  Do we have that post and I missed it?  Kind of hard to form an opinion either way without seeing it.  I did find it interesting that the Professor was shown the post according to the article yet the reporter was shown a canned response from FB and apparently not the actual post itself which makes me wonder if not why not?  Not sure how anybody can have a strong opinion one way or another without actually seeing the actual post.  I did find a different post with the "I am the flag" poem in it so you can pretty safely rule out an algorithm  based on the poem  causing the post to be removed at least.  I do think its short sided and wrong not using FB any longer and instead depending on their own website to get the word out about criminals on the loose because I highly doubt an independent site will get nearly the traffic that FB does. 

 
Because Facebook wouldn’t reply to the media about it.  What we do have is the post in question which is completely innocuous.  We also have an expert on social media who reviewed the post and said there was nothing controversial in there and nothing that should have tripped any algorithms.

Once again, sorry for bringing it up.  I have to be more cognizant of how the American flag triggers so many in here.  Maybe that’s why Facebook banned the post.  Big Tech knows best.
we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention

 
I didnt see the post in question in the article.  Do we have that post and I missed it?  Kind of hard to form an opinion either way without seeing it.  I did find it interesting that the Professor was shown the post according to the article yet the reporter was shown a canned response from FB and apparently not the actual post itself which makes me wonder if not why not?  Not sure how anybody can have a strong opinion one way or another without actually seeing the actual post.  I did find a different post with the "I am the flag" poem in it so you can pretty safely rule out an algorithm  based on the poem  causing the post to be removed at least.  I do think its short sided and wrong not using FB any longer and instead depending on their own website to get the word out about criminals on the loose because I highly doubt an independent site will get nearly the traffic that FB does. 
The post was on the news report in the article.

 
"Because Facebook wouldn’t reply to the media about it"  is also inaccurate since the 13 hour story says that they have reached out  to FB and will update the story when they hear back.... not.... we have asked FB about it and they wont reply.  

 
The post was on the news report in the article.
I see that now.... I cant read it but I see it. So we do know the news reporter at the very least had a copy of what the sheriff gave them anyway.  Hopefully I can find a copy of the post that I can read and any comments to that post.  Often time entire posts on FB get taken down when comments get out of hand too.  

 
I am seeing on Twitter some comments that the suspension may have been due to a copyright issue of the poem quoted that the Facebook algorithm caught, not the content of the post itself.

In any event, we won't know the real reason until Facebook issues some sort of explanation. 
This seems like the most plausible explanation although Facebook should communicate the reason to the user much better.

 
Facebook uses algorithms is my understanding and they sometimes get this wrong.

The flip side is that you are public servant, keep your damn political opinions on your own personal page.  That's the only thing wrong with this story in my books.  I like him whining about not using facebook anymore even though he says it's critical for department business.  Grow up you baby.  Do your actual job
How is flying an American flag political?

 
That is disgusting and should be taken down.  Im not an expert on what is and isnt within the rules on FB but according to what I read the disclaimer that she wasnt advocating cop killing was enough to keep the FB page up.  It wouldnt be in Budbook but apparently is in facebook.  Not sure what that has to do with why the Sherrifs post was not only taken down but apparently his account locked too.  Based on other stuff I read about this sheriff Im not sure I would automatically take his word for it without seeing the entire post and comments... and an unreadable background pic doesnt  qualify as readable.  

 
This seems like the most plausible explanation although Facebook should communicate the reason to the user much better.
Its possible but it would mean they dont regulate this type of thing evenly because the first thing I ran into when googling that particular poem was a FB post that wasnt take down that used the poem to advocate for flag day.  

 

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