Microsoft is continuing to crack down on hate speech and is making it easier for people to report it, according to a blog post by the company last week.
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Microsoft defines hate speech as any content that advocates hatred based on age, gender, disability, nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.
“For many years we’ve sought to protect our customers by prohibiting hate speech and removing such content from our hosted consumer services”. This means that simply having someone report a piece of content is not enough to have it removed, the request will be thoroughly reviewed in order to minimize the potential for wrongful takedowns.
Today we’re announcing a new dedicated web form for reporting hate speech on our hosted consumer services, and a separate web form for requests to reconsider and reinstate content.
“When hate speech is reported to us, we will evaluate each complaint, consider context and other factors, and determine appropriate action with respect to the content and the user’s account”, Jacqueline said yesterday.
Microsoft recognizes this fact and takes upon itself the responsibility to ensure that its various hosted services represent the kinds of places where all of its customers can participate without the threat of violence or hatred. This in turn encourages users to make the best of Microsoft’s new function, and also alleviates the blame from Microsoft’s part; if any abusive content is present, Microsoft has already claimed that it will largely rely on reports, and hence will not be able to remove all of it. Microsoft also released a resource to help young users recognize abuse, which will subsequently help them report it.
The blogpost reads, “We take seriously our responsibilities in removing hate speech and addressing other violations of our terms of use, but we’re not flawless”. Users can also use online forms to request that content be reinstated. It recently joined major social media and video-sharing companies to support the European Commission Code of Conduct for countering hate speech online.
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“Reports received from governments will be included as government requests in our semi-annual Content Removal Requests Report, published at the Microsoft Transparency Hub”, the post said.
