Several users have reported that the apparently innocuous quote has been removed without clear explanation.
A quote from St Augustine has apparently been prohibited from Facebook.
Domenico Bettinelli, a pro-life activist from
Massachusetts, said in a blog post that a passage by St Augustine from the divine office was taken down as it violated Facebook’s
“Community Standards on hate speech”.
“Let us never assume
that if we tend to live good lives we’ll be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we still beg for pardon. However men are hopeless
creatures, and the less
they focus on their
own sins, the more interested
they become in the sins
of others. They seek to
criticize, not to correct.
Unable to justify themselves, they’re ready to accuse others.”
In a post on Facebook, Bettinelli said the quote “is simply a reformulation of Jesus’
own words from Matthew 7:3 “Why do
you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, however don’t perceive the wooden beam in your own
eye?” is the Gospel
hate speech by Facebook’s standards?”
Bettinelli posted the quote when he
saw that 2 priests had posted the excerpt
from the workplace of
Readings which it had
been flagged by Facebook. They believed that an algorithmic rule was flagging the content.
After his post was additionally removed, Bettinelli requested somebody’s review appealing the decision and later received notice that his appeal was
rejected.
In his response to the unsuccessful appeal, Bettinelli wrote: “I still
don’t understand why this can be hate speech. It’s a
quote from a Catholic saint who expresses the opposite of hate
speech. He’s primarily restating the words
of Jesus Christ in the Gospels to prevent worrying concerning what the other guy is or isn’t doing
and worry about your own flaws. Is Facebook saying that the Gospel is hate speech? However what’s worse is
that I even have no more understanding currently of what’s a violation of your
community standards than I did before. I cannot for the life of me find out why you label this hate speech.”
He later told LifeSiteNews that he might have found a solution to the mystery: “A
friend posted just ‘men are hopeless
creatures’ which got banned, so that looks to
be the relevant part that’s hate speech,” he said.
“If FB doesn’t want me to
post it, then I’m going to blog concerning it and
then I’m going to podcast about it and I’m going to create a stink about it till somebody with some power gets FB to admit that quotations from
early Church fathers isn’t hate
speech,” said Bettinelli.
A Facebook spokesperson said: “We’ve reviewed this post and can ensure it was removed
in error. It’s currently been restored.”