Do you have any questions around how Facebook decides what should and shouldn’t stay on the platform? Ask the experts at Facebook - 3x £100 vouchers to be won

[EllieMumsnet]

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We’ve been working with Facebook to find out the key areas users want to know about the social media platform. From our research and activity so far we have found 4 main areas that parents have questions around: ‘Moderating content’, ‘User's data privacy’, ‘Mental health & social media’ and ‘Safe use of the internet/Facebook’. We will be running 4 Q&A’s in order to cover these areas and allow MNers the chance to asked their questions on each topic.

This Q&A is about ‘moderating content’. This covers subjects such as: hate speech, inappropriate content and spam, fake profiles and false news.

Here’s what Facebook has to say: “We have a clear set of rules, called our Community Standards, which outline what is and isn't allowed on Facebook. People are very good at reporting things that break these rules. We have a team of thousands of content reviewers, based all over the world and they review content in every major language. This means that collectively our teams are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so we can respond to reports as quickly as possible, whenever and wherever they come from. We’re committed to making a safer platform for everyone"
#AskFacebook

Do you have questions on how Facebook monitors for hate speech or inappropriate behaviour? Perhaps you’d like to know more about the process moderators undertake or how Facebook are using artificial intelligence technology to help? Would you like to know how new accounts are verified? Maybe you would like to know how a post is determined as hateful? Or would you like to know how to report a post and the process that is involved with that?

Whatever questions you have around moderating content on Facebook, please post them on the thread below and we will choose approximately 10 for Facebook to answer. Everyone who posts their questions will be entered into a prize draw where 3 MNers will win a £100 voucher of their choice (from a list).

If you would like to ask questions about ‘user’s data privacy’ please click here
If you would like to ask questions about ‘mental health & social media’ please click here
If you would like to ask questions about ‘safe use of the internet/Facebook’ please click here

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Do you pay content moderators enough? Considering the work they must do, the speed they must work, the content they might see.

Do you report content to the police if you deem it to be harmful or threatening in a way that would put a group or individual at risk, or do you wait for the police to contact you?

Do your moderators have an offer of counselling or access to relevant support, as some of the content they must be very difficult to process?

How do you balence freedom of speech with the rights and freedoms of others?

I've reported things in the past but struggled to choose the right category for why, will it ever change so that you can choose more than one and/or give a brief reason in your own words?

Would there ever be the option to have a moderated account for younger or more vulnerable members with only age appropriate content and eg anything with certain words or topics being excluded? Would put a lot of pressure off parental monitoring. Surely a computer program could filter for what’s deemed appropriate and not? Parents could allow or disallow various content.

If you use people to decide what is and is not acceptable, do you recruit those from a diverse background and check their opinions first?

Could it be possible for Facebook to block delete widely shared bullshit posts like 'this soldier was refused in a shop owned by this Muslim, share if you are a racist arsehole' etc. ?

I would like to know how people are trained to identify what should or should not be onsite - and what are their working conditions.

As Facebook has now made Facebook messages encyped for users and the chat would be private between the people messaging each other, then how would Facebook know if people were messaging unwanted content or if they were going against the rules?

Does an actual person see every post that is taken down?

How can you actually 'moderate' when you also provide the capability for an individual to 'live stream' their activities? By the time the video is reported to moderators and reviewed, it will not only already have been viewed but also downloaded, stored, and potentially then uploaded to a different hosting site. Surely, as recent events show, this is a huge risk.

Why do you not allow breast pumps to be posted for sale?

Who monitors the monitors?

This is a good long read about some of the people who actually do the Facebook moderation:

www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona

I agree with earlier posters in regard to the lack of backbone in FB's community standards. I reported a post where an elected community leader was called a c..t on a public page. This apparently does not breach FB's community standards!

Another concern is fake profiles on buy N sell pages. I have reported a few of those and yet the profile/trader remain. However, my BIL who operated a cyber cartoon character page of himself with his nickname had to delete his page as he could not provide an official document confirming he existed.

I had a post deleted by Facebook for hate speech, when I was merely summarising a new article. Completely factual, but someone took umbrage to my words and reported the comment. When I asked for a review, it remained deleted.

I would like to know if real people actually read these comments before they are deleted, or is there an algorithm at play?

The comment was about a news article reporting the rape and trafficking of Roma children in Scotland, and the article specifically stated white British men travelled to that area in order to find children to abuse. Witnesses were quoted.

I am, frankly, disgusted that Facebook facilitated in hiding this fact by accusing me of hate speech and deleting my comment.

I'd like to hear about how you take care of the people who do the moderation. In order to determine that content breaks the rules, they have to look at that content, much of which will be distressing. Do they get (for example) private healthcare with access to therapists?

Can I say that women don’t have penises?

I reported a post which was racist against Muslims. Presumably whoever moderated it is absolutely fine with racism against Muslims though as it was allowed to stand. It's not a good look for facebook.

Who decides what is appropriate or not? Can we have access to these guidelines? Are they set in stone or do you look at each incident and decide what course of action to take?

Is there a way to protect our own accounts or our children's ones from offensive content?

Who is making the decisions and how are the decisions made? On a report by report basis?

How do you balance the need for a swift response and the potential for responding inappropriately to malicious reports?

The above article includes this:
““Autistic people should be sterilized” seems offensive to him, but it stays up as well. Autism is not a “protected characteristic” the way race and gender are, and so it doesn’t violate the policy.”

Is this accurate? If so, why is disability not a protected characteristic in your guidelines when it is a protected characteristic in law?