Facebook on Tuesday said it has updated its hate speech policy to include a ban on images of blackface and anti-Semitic tropes.
The company said it changed its standards to “more specifically account for certain kinds of implicit hate speech,” including caricatures of Black people in the form of blackface and Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government. Blackface is a controversial subject in the Netherlands and Belgium, because of the Christmas tradition of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), a “helper” of Saint Nicholas who is typically played by a White person whose face is blacked up. The tradition has been criticized by activist groups for being racist.
Facebook has been under renewed pressure to do more to quash racism on its platforms following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of the police in the U.S. in May 2020.
