--- title: "Facebook Is Creating Fake AI-Powered Black Women While Changing Its Rules So It’s Okay to Harass Real Ones" description: "Meta is now allowing users to spew hate at real-life Black women — even as it plans to move forward with AI \"characters\" that mimic them. " date: "2025-01-09" modified: "2025-01-09" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/meta-fake-users-hate-speech" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Meta" tags: - "facebook" - "mark zuckerberg" - "Meta" - "racism" --- # Facebook Is Creating Fake AI-Powered Black Women While Changing Its Rules So It’s Okay to Harass Real Ones ![Meta is now allowing users to spew hate at real-life Black women — even as it plans to move forward with AI "characters" that mimic them. ]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* With [Meta's new content moderation policies](), the company is now allowing users to spew hate at real-life Black women, who are already [disproportionately targeted]() by online vitriol — even as it plans to move forward with [AI "characters" that mimic them](). In a new editorial, [*Washington Post* columnist Karen Attiah published]() an abridged version of her lengthy chat with "Liz," one of Meta's AI-powered "characters" that was described as a "proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller." During the exchange, the chatbot turned on the company that created it, fuming that there were no Black people on the team that created it and claiming that it had given a "false backstory" to another journalist about its supposed racial background. Between those strange claims and its forced African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), the columnist predicted that such AIs may be the next frontier of "digital blackface," a term referring to when individuals and companies pretend to be Black online for their own gain. The whole fracas, importantly, came after Connor Hayes, Meta's VP of product for generative AI, [told the *Financial Times*]() at the end of 2024 that such "characters" — read: fake users — will soon come populate the company's social networks. "They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform," he told the outlet, adding that "that’s where we see all of this going." After [ample criticism online](), driven in no small part by [Attiah's Bluesky posts]() showing her exchange with "Liz," [Meta ended up killing that chatbot]() and many of its other existing AI characters. But that felt like more of a reactionary dodge than any real course correction to the company's AI strategy. When the [company appointed]() Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White as a director of its board this week — how's that for a sign of the times? — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg enthused that he would "help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI." (Meta didn't respond to our questions asking if those plans had changed in the wake of the "Liz" criticism, either.) Days after that kerfuffle, the social giant was once again in the news after [Zuckerberg announced a series of sweeping changes]() to content moderation on Meta's platforms. Reading between the lines, the [overhaul will almost certainly]() allow hate speech to proliferate on Facebook and Instagram the way a similar loosening of standards caused a wave of hateful garbage on the social network formerly known as Twitter. Even more chillingly, a close look at the change log of [Meta's latest "hateful conduct" policy]() shows that the company has removed rules banning users from referring to women as "property." It's a jarring misogynistic shift that could allow [virulent racists to make disgusting comments]() about white men "owning" Black women as they were legally entitled to do in the United States [less than 160 years ago](). Unless Meta plans to fully rescind its plans to create more AI-generated users, it may well create other "Liz"-style accounts to drive up engagement — all while actual Black women on its platforms are subjected to real-life racism and misogyny without recourse. **More on Meta:** [*Zuckerberg Seems Genuinely Alarmed by the Explosive Growth of Bluesky*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()