Facebook is widely known for being a hub for things like fake news and abusive behavior, and its parent company Meta is well aware of that. In an effort to be transparent, Meta has released a year end report that details its attempts to crack down on this type of behavior because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up giving people hope about the company and make it seem like they are trying their best to clean their social media platforms up and make them safer for everyone to use.
According to this report, Facebook has deleted over 850 different profiles that were associated with the targeted harassment of journalists and that were involved in local unrest all around the world. 99 Facebook pages were removed as well, many of which were attempting to spread misinformation regarding vaccines and the like. That’s definitely a positive step with all things having been considered and taken into account, because Facebook has been single handedly responsible for allowing a great deal of vaccine hesitancy and denial to spread so it’s good that the platform is trying to reverse some of the damage that it’s done.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this report, as with all things Facebook related, could be seen as nothing more than a PR stunt. The report details account deletions in Palestine, something that concurs with Palestinian activists claiming that Facebook and Instagram were censoring their attempts to discuss human rights violations occurring in the Gaza Strip. Notably absent from the report are actions taken against white supremacists and other extremists on the platform. This report might seem like good news to some, but to others it’s yet another in a long line of empty gestures from Meta.
Read next: Meta Starts Cracking Down on Revenge Porn
According to this report, Facebook has deleted over 850 different profiles that were associated with the targeted harassment of journalists and that were involved in local unrest all around the world. 99 Facebook pages were removed as well, many of which were attempting to spread misinformation regarding vaccines and the like. That’s definitely a positive step with all things having been considered and taken into account, because Facebook has been single handedly responsible for allowing a great deal of vaccine hesitancy and denial to spread so it’s good that the platform is trying to reverse some of the damage that it’s done.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this report, as with all things Facebook related, could be seen as nothing more than a PR stunt. The report details account deletions in Palestine, something that concurs with Palestinian activists claiming that Facebook and Instagram were censoring their attempts to discuss human rights violations occurring in the Gaza Strip. Notably absent from the report are actions taken against white supremacists and other extremists on the platform. This report might seem like good news to some, but to others it’s yet another in a long line of empty gestures from Meta.
Read next: Meta Starts Cracking Down on Revenge Porn