LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky's largest school district called out the world's largest social media company for removing posts announcing the hiring of Black principals.
Jefferson County Public Schools routinely posts on social media platforms celebrating the naming of new principals. Chief Equity Officer John Marshall said 11 new principals were named this summer.
A JCPS post about hiring Black principals were flagged by Facebook.
Five are Black, six are white and Facebook removed every one of the posts with the Black principals.
They were flagged as spam or violating Facebook's community standards meant to prevent issues like false advertising and fraud.
The district said it appealed and asked Facebook how the posts fell into that category. They received no response for weeks, so Marshall called Facebook out on Twitter.
Hey @Facebook, @JCPSKY recently put up 11 posts announcing new principals.
— John Marshall D. Ed. (@jdm1906) July 26, 2022
5 were Black.
6 were white.
You took down all posts celebrating the Black principals. You say the posts violated your Community Standards on spam. WHY? pic.twitter.com/WEgcFXVfTn
"We're putting up principals who want to lead public schools and somehow or another, whether its an algorithm or someone posting that it's inappropriate, it needs to be rectified and justified and explained," Marshall said.
Facebook did put the posts in question back online Tuesday evening. WDRB News was told that Congressman John Yarmuth contacted Facebook about the problem.
In a statement to WDRB News, Facebook said:
"These posts were mistakenly removed by out automated system. We sincerely regret the error and are looking into how it happened."
The company also spoke to a JCPS spokesperson, who told WDRB News the algorithm Facebook used was trying to catch racist posts where users were ranting or complaining about people of color getting high profile jobs.
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