Facebook on Tuesday inadvertently launched a new button that asks users whether posts on their news feed contained hate speech, Business Insider reports.
The button went live on the social media site for a short period of time and was resolved before noon.
"This was an internal test we were working on to understand different types of speech, including speech we thought would not be hate," Facebook said in a statement. "A bug caused it to launch publicly. It's been disabled."
Hate speech, harassment, and bullying are major problems online, and Facebook has long struggled to moderate content consistently. Last week, the company published its 27 pages of guidelines it calls Community Standards in a move to become more transparent following criticism the company's censors removed posts that did not violate the terms and for allowing flagged content containing hate speech to remain posted.
Facebook has 7,500 reviewers who review content for the company 24 hours a day, seven days a week in more than 40 languages. Facebook users can appeal the shutdown of their account but not of their individual posts.
"We do want to provide more details and information for why content has been removed," Ellen Silver, Facebook's vice president of community operations, told The Washington Post last week. "We have more work to do there and we are committed to making those improvements."
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