Twitter expands hate speech rules to include race, ethnicity

Twitter, a US owned micro-blogging platform Wednesday expanded its policy on hate speech to include race and ethnicity.

Twitter in a statement said hate speech includes “language that dehumanizes people on the basis of race, ethnicity and national origin.”

According to Reuters, Twitter banned speeches that dehumanizes others based on religion or caste last year and updated the rule in March to add age, disability and disease to the list of protected categories.

Civil rights group Color of Change, part of a coalition of advocacy organizations that have been pushing tech companies to reduce hate speech online, called the changes “essential concessions” following years of outside pressures.

Read also: Twitter flags tweet by Donald Trump claiming vote theft in U.S election

Meanwhile, in a statement, Color Of Change Vice, President Arisha Hatch criticized Twitter for failing to not reviewing the its hate speech policy before the US presidential election November.

Hatch also said Twitter has declined to provide transparency into how its content moderators are trained and the efficacy of its artificial intelligence in identifying content that violates the hate speech policy.

“The jury is still out for a company with a spotty track record of policy implementation and enforcing its rules with far-right extremist users,” she said.

“Void of hard evidence the company will follow through, this announcement will fall into a growing category of too little, too late PR stunt offerings.”

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