Facebook, a social media platform almost all of us know about and have used at least once in our life. The platform has recently been getting scrutinized a lot by its users, advertisers, and has been a major topic of discussion for its privacy and expression practices. This was because Facebook was not taking effective measures against the hateful and controversial posts and comments that were being made on the platform. Observing this, the advertisers and brands started pulling out their marketing budget from Facebook, and had this continued, the site would have faced a big loss because most of its revenue comes from its advertisers.
But now, the famous social media consultant Matt Navarra and a Twitter user Adam Flowers spotted a change on Facebook. Navarra posted an image of a pop-up message which tells the user that their comment is against Facebook’s community guidelines as it might be containing bullying or harassment to another party. Then they have given options to either ‘Edit Comment” “Ignore” or “Delete Comment”. Matt captioned the image by saying that he has never seen Facebook alerting its users about a comment before. This feature is almost similar to Instagram's caption warning system that detects abusive content instantly.
There have been quite a few responses to Matt’s tweet. Some people have said that they have seen this message themselves when they were joking around with their friends, using sarcasm. They witnessed that their comments had gone grey and they do not seem very happy about it. We all use different tones to talk with our friends and if Facebook is striking down those comments that did not contain any hate speech in them, it may cause Facebook a lot of trouble because majority of users may not want to use the app anymore to express themselves or their opinions. As a recent survey from Gallup shows that two-thirds of consumers prefer social media to be a place of free expression (including views that are offensive).
Critics also claims that Facebook only took this step because they didn’t want to lose their advertisers and also do not like the fact that Facebook has given the users the option to “Ignore” the message and continue with what they are doing. However, there still are people who support the idea and have also mentioned that they wished YouTube, the Google-owned social network had done the same i.e. inform its users first before demonetizing the videos.
It feels like it is better for Facebook to alert and target those posts or comments which go against their community guidelines and not strike every post which they think might be containing it.
Screenshot: @adzflowers / @MattNavarra / Twitter.
Read next: Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook will soon start labeling problematic content that violates its policies
But now, the famous social media consultant Matt Navarra and a Twitter user Adam Flowers spotted a change on Facebook. Navarra posted an image of a pop-up message which tells the user that their comment is against Facebook’s community guidelines as it might be containing bullying or harassment to another party. Then they have given options to either ‘Edit Comment” “Ignore” or “Delete Comment”. Matt captioned the image by saying that he has never seen Facebook alerting its users about a comment before. This feature is almost similar to Instagram's caption warning system that detects abusive content instantly.
There have been quite a few responses to Matt’s tweet. Some people have said that they have seen this message themselves when they were joking around with their friends, using sarcasm. They witnessed that their comments had gone grey and they do not seem very happy about it. We all use different tones to talk with our friends and if Facebook is striking down those comments that did not contain any hate speech in them, it may cause Facebook a lot of trouble because majority of users may not want to use the app anymore to express themselves or their opinions. As a recent survey from Gallup shows that two-thirds of consumers prefer social media to be a place of free expression (including views that are offensive).
Critics also claims that Facebook only took this step because they didn’t want to lose their advertisers and also do not like the fact that Facebook has given the users the option to “Ignore” the message and continue with what they are doing. However, there still are people who support the idea and have also mentioned that they wished YouTube, the Google-owned social network had done the same i.e. inform its users first before demonetizing the videos.
It feels like it is better for Facebook to alert and target those posts or comments which go against their community guidelines and not strike every post which they think might be containing it.
Screenshot: @adzflowers / @MattNavarra / Twitter.
Read next: Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook will soon start labeling problematic content that violates its policies
