Are you calling me gay facebook

In the last two months, Facebook has blocked me from posting at least three times. At the end of April, I called my friend Gabriel a fag in the comments section of a link I had posted and he liked my comment. We do that sort of thing all the time, but within a few hours, Facebook blocked me from posting for seven days.

I can understand why Facebook would block a heterosexual who said faggot—at Catholic school, straight boys used the word to make fun of me on the playground nearly every day—but Gabriel and I always use the homophobic slur in a joking or prideful way, robbing it of its harmful meaning.

The first time I got banned for using the term, I assumed some sort of hate speech—detecting algorithm had mistaken me for a hetero, but then I remembered Facebook regularly shows me HIV ads targeted at gay men. Zuckerberg and company know my sexual preference—I even say I like boys on my profile.

After I got banned that time, I decided to find out how Facebook decides who gets blocked for saying faggot. Facebook does not permit hate speech, but distinguishes between serious and humorous speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.

Facebook never explains how long they will block someone, so I messaged the site to explain my situation and appeal the decision. Please unblock me. When they let me post are you calling me gay facebook again the first week of May, I looked for ways to say the F-word without getting blocked again.

I felt uncomfortable doing this—why should I have to censor myself? This weekend I slipped, a bit ironically, after I posted a New York Times article about trigger warnings on my wall to criticize oversensitive college kids. I was worried Facebook had some kind of robot that crawled through statuses and comments in search of offensive keywords, but according to a representative for the site, no such thing exists.

After I spoke with the representative, the Facebook team reviewed my account and decided to reverse their decision, claiming they had made a mistake.

Facebook Blocked Me Because I Said ‘Faggot,’ Even Though I’m Gay

Facebook created their community standards to protect gays and other minority groups who are routinely censored, restricted, and rejected in the workplace and at school. Instead, we find ourselves looking over our shoulders as we type, worried that someone will misunderstand a word or a phrase and, instead of talking to us, report us to a ban-happy administrator.

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