Babylon Bee joke removed by Facebook for violating 'community standards' for 'hate speech'

Popular Christian-themed satire publication The Babylon Bee was targeted for "hate speech" on Monday, when Facebook removed one of its posts for violating "Community Standards."

"Facebook just removed one of @TheBabylonBee's posts for 'hate speech'," noted the Bee's own Joel Berry on Twitter. The "violation" reads "No one else can see your post. We have these standards because we want discussions on Facebook to be respectful. Repeatedly violating our Community Standards can cause further account restrictions. If you think we've made a mistake you can disagree with the decision."

At issue was a post about the latest Jeopardy quiz show winner Amy Schneider. Schneider is a biological male who identifies as transgender and uses female pronouns. As such, many publications, in reporting on Schneider's win, said that Schneider was the winningest woman in Jeopardy history.

The Babylon Bee noted that Schneider is in fact biologically male, and in response to the many media headlines claim Schneider's win on behalf of women everywhere, wrote that "As a biological male, Schneider is once again providing the vast superiority of the male intellect."

Generations of feminists have endeavored to make clear that intellect and intellectual capability are not stronger with males, but that women, too, are capable of attaining dizzying heights of intellectual ability. Schneider's win being reported as a win for women, despite not being born female, was ripe for satire, according to the Bee.

"Pretty proud of this. It's not often we manage to get transphobia and misogyny into one headline," Berry wrote on Twitter following the violation on Facebook.

The Blaze's Jessica O'Donnell picked up the metaphorical ball and ran with it, saying "bet it was a female mod."

In April 2021, Facebook made a similarly false assumption about The Babylon Bee, when Facebook blocked a post and threatened to demonetize their page for "promoting crime." It was a satirical post making fun of rioters' hypocrisy.

Kyle Mann, the creator of the Bee, tweeted, "Facebook is penalizing @TheBabylonBee for 'coordinating harm and promoting crime' for our satirical post MAKING FUN OF THOSE WHO RIOT. We appealed the decision but were told it was unlikely we'd receive a response."

In June 2021, The New York Times had to retract their claim that the satire site was "misinformation."