facebook
UPDATE: Scroll to the bottom for Facebook's response.

On Tuesday, Facebook launched an initiative enabling users to identify "hate speech."

On virtually every single public post, an option has emerged. "Does this post contain hate speech?" the site asks, giving two options: "Yes" or "No." Each post also gives the option to dismiss the question with a tiny "x" box to the right of the answers.

The "hate speech" question even appears on a user's own posts.

facebook hate speech

Facebook appears to have applied this policy to everyone's posts, an equal opportunity "hate speech" identifying project. It shows up on PJ Media:

Facebook hate speech
And on National Review:

Facebook hate speech
And on HuffPost:

Facebook hate speech initiative
It showed up for the LGBT group Human Rights Campaign:

facebook hate speech initiative
And for the Family Research Council.

facebook hate speech initiative
Even posts not sharing articles had the "hate speech" identification option.

facebook hate speech initiative
Then, just as suddenly as the "hate speech" identification options appeared, they disappeared on Tuesday morning.

Some did not take kindly to this option. "What the heck Facebook? Why are you asking if I'm committing hate speech?" Joshua Herring, a humanities instructor at Thales Academy and contributor for The Imaginative Conservative and The Federalist, asked.

facebook hate speech initiative
UPDATE: Facebook's response.

After the "hate speech" identification options disappeared, a Facebook spokesperson explained the situation to PJ Media.

"This was an internal test we were working on to understand different types of speech, including speech we thought would not be hate," the spokesperson said. "A bug caused it to launch publicly. It's been disabled."