As much as Facebook is a popular social media platform there are some negative aspects to it as well. The tech giant no matter how much tries to protect its general public from any harm or negativity on the platform, things are different for celebrities and what it considers some popular people on the social network.
It was recently revealed from Facebook’s 300 pages’ internal moderation guideline which Guardian’s broke down in easier words and direct explanations that exposed Facebook’s high tolerance for abuse and targeting public and popular figures.
The leaked moderator memos described how the general public can hit on the popular clan and go even as far as giving them death threats or calling their death on the platform while Facebook has its own rules and definitions describing what a crime is in their terms which do not associate with the general public laws of many regions.
In other words, the report revealed two things.
One, that the company’s bullying and harassment policy only applies to the general public and anyone who is a renowned public figure or has a high social media following will automatically be considered popular and the policy will not be applied to them. Meaning they can be a target for direct abuse and the company will not do anything about it. The company’s bullying and harassment policy gives out specific instructions which help moderators of the platform to differ between popular and private citizens and give a higher degree of protection to the private ones.
According to the company they do protect the public figures in some ways. Any posts which seems to have an extremely severe attack is removed while posts containing threats in which the directed person is tagged is also removed. However, for the private citizens this security goes a lot deeper and further and they are protected in several other ways with greater measures.
The second thing which was revealed from the platform’s internal moderation was that the tech giant favored violation of human rights when it was directed towards a public figure. Calls for death and mass murders on the platform was not considered violent as long as it was for a celebrity who was not directly tagged. This shows that Facebook has its own set of “crimes” which do not sit well with the crimes from many other parts of the world.
Popular people or celebrities are still normal people with a few additional zeroes in their following. Harassment is an issue which is faced by many and it should not be categorized about whose harassment should the actions be taken against because good mental health is important for everyone and therefore the tech giant should revive and reconsider its policies.
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Read next: Facebook says that it has taken down more than 1.3 billion fake accounts from October to December last year including 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 vaccine with the help of its moderators
It was recently revealed from Facebook’s 300 pages’ internal moderation guideline which Guardian’s broke down in easier words and direct explanations that exposed Facebook’s high tolerance for abuse and targeting public and popular figures.
The leaked moderator memos described how the general public can hit on the popular clan and go even as far as giving them death threats or calling their death on the platform while Facebook has its own rules and definitions describing what a crime is in their terms which do not associate with the general public laws of many regions.
In other words, the report revealed two things.
One, that the company’s bullying and harassment policy only applies to the general public and anyone who is a renowned public figure or has a high social media following will automatically be considered popular and the policy will not be applied to them. Meaning they can be a target for direct abuse and the company will not do anything about it. The company’s bullying and harassment policy gives out specific instructions which help moderators of the platform to differ between popular and private citizens and give a higher degree of protection to the private ones.
According to the company they do protect the public figures in some ways. Any posts which seems to have an extremely severe attack is removed while posts containing threats in which the directed person is tagged is also removed. However, for the private citizens this security goes a lot deeper and further and they are protected in several other ways with greater measures.
The second thing which was revealed from the platform’s internal moderation was that the tech giant favored violation of human rights when it was directed towards a public figure. Calls for death and mass murders on the platform was not considered violent as long as it was for a celebrity who was not directly tagged. This shows that Facebook has its own set of “crimes” which do not sit well with the crimes from many other parts of the world.
Popular people or celebrities are still normal people with a few additional zeroes in their following. Harassment is an issue which is faced by many and it should not be categorized about whose harassment should the actions be taken against because good mental health is important for everyone and therefore the tech giant should revive and reconsider its policies.
Read next: Facebook says that it has taken down more than 1.3 billion fake accounts from October to December last year including 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 vaccine with the help of its moderators
