Good morning, Mainers!
Thanks to YOUR support, our news cooperative has put the world’s biggest social-media giant on notice: anti-Muslim hate speech has no
place in Maine, in the real world or online.
In response to our Nov. 12 article [see article by clicking here] about hate speech in a private Facebook group about Lewiston-Auburn, the Chief Technology Officer of Facebook has, via Twitter, publicly announced that the offending content has been removed and that their teams are “working on” this problem. This is, of course, just the beginning, but it’s a major breakthrough in the larger effort to hold Facebook accountable for hate speech on its platform, and Mainer will continue to push for meaningful change.
Mainer reporters Nathan Bernard and Andy O’Brien broke this story and, primarily
via Twitter, spread it nationwide. Nathan’s original tweet, for example, has
been re-tweeted over 2,300 times as of this morning, and national news
organizations, including the Washington Post, have contacted him about this
issue. (On Nov. 6, the Washington Post cited and linked to Nathan’s earlier
article for Mainer about the anti-Muslim smear campaign in the Lewiston City
Council race won by Safiya Khalid.)
Mainer is able to publish work by these new reporters on our team thanks to YOUR support of our cooperative. I hope you all feel a measure of satisfaction today knowing that your contribution to Mainer is forcing some of the most powerful players on the planet to clean up their act and make the world a less hateful place.
Thank you for making this happen!
In solidarity,
Chris
Chris Busy is the Editor at Mainer News Cooperative. https://www.mainernews.com/