Revealed: Facebook's internal rulebook on sex, terrorism and violence
Revealed: Facebook's internal rulebook on sex, terrorism
and violence
Leaked policies guiding moderators on what content to
allow are likely to fuel debate about social media giant’s ethics
By Nick Hopkins Sunday 21 May 2017 13.00 EDT Last
modified on Sunday 21 May 2017 17.43 EDT
Facebook’s secret rules and guidelines for deciding what
its 2 billion users can post on the site are revealed for the first time in a
Guardian investigation that will fuel the global debate about the role and
ethics of the social media giant.
The Guardian has seen more than 100 internal training
manuals, spreadsheets and flowcharts that give unprecedented insight into the
blueprints Facebook has used to moderate issues such as violence, hate speech,
terrorism, pornography, racism and self-harm.
There are even guidelines on match-fixing and
cannibalism.
The Facebook Files give the first view of the codes and
rules formulated by the site, which is under huge political pressure in Europe
and the US.
They illustrate difficulties faced by executives
scrabbling to react to new challenges such as “revenge porn” – and the
challenges for moderators, who say they are overwhelmed by the volume of work,
which means they often have “just 10 seconds” to make a decision.
“Facebook cannot keep control of its content,” said one
source. “It has grown too big, too quickly.”
Many moderators are said to have concerns about the
inconsistency and peculiar nature of some of the policies. Those on sexual
content, for example, are said to be the most complex and confusing.
One document says Facebook reviews more than 6.5m reports
a week relating to potentially fake accounts – known as FNRP (fake, not real
person).
Using thousands of slides and pictures, Facebook sets out
guidelines that may worry critics who say the service is now a publisher and
must do more to remove hateful, hurtful and violent content.
Yet these blueprints may also alarm free speech advocates
concerned about Facebook’s de facto role as the world’s largest censor. Both
sides are likely to demand greater transparency.
The Guardian has seen documents supplied to Facebook
moderators within the last year. The files tell them:
Facebook's internal manual on non-sexual child abuse
content
·
Remarks such as “Someone shoot Trump” should be
deleted, because as a head of state he is in a protected category. But it can
be permissible to say: “To snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your
pressure to the middle of her throat”, or “fuck off and die” because they are
not regarded as credible threats.
·
Videos of violent deaths, while marked as
disturbing, do not always have to be deleted because they can help create
awareness of issues such as mental illness.
·
Some photos of non-sexual physical abuse and
bullying of children do not have to be deleted or “actioned” unless there is a
sadistic or celebratory element.
·
Photos of animal abuse can be shared, with only
extremely upsetting imagery to be marked as “disturbing”.
·
All “handmade” art showing nudity and sexual
activity is allowed but digitally made art showing sexual activity is not.
·
Videos of abortions are allowed, as long as
there is no nudity.
·
Facebook will allow people to livestream
attempts to self-harm because it “doesn’t want to censor or punish people in
distress”.
·
Anyone with more than 100,000 followers on a
social media platform is designated as a public figure – which denies them the
full protections given to private individuals.
Other types of remarks that can be permitted by the
documents include: “Little girl needs to keep to herself before daddy breaks
her face,” and “I hope someone kills you.” The threats are regarded as either
generic or not credible.
In one of the leaked documents, Facebook acknowledges
“people use violent language to express frustration online” and feel “safe to
do so” on the site.
It says: “They feel that the issue won’t come back to
them and they feel indifferent towards the person they are making the threats
about because of the lack of empathy created by communication via devices as
opposed to face to face.
“We should say that violent language is most often not
credible until specificity of language gives us a reasonable ground to accept
that there is no longer simply an expression of emotion but a transition to a
plot or design. From this perspective language such as ‘I’m going to kill you’
or ‘Fuck off and die’ is not credible and is a violent expression of dislike
and frustration.”
It adds: “People commonly express disdain or disagreement
by threatening or calling for violence in generally facetious and unserious
ways.”
Facebook conceded that “not all disagreeable or disturbing
content violates our community standards”.
Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy
management, said the service had almost 2 billion users and that it was
difficult to reach a consensus on what to allow.
“We have a really diverse global community and people are
going to have very different ideas about what is OK to share. No matter where
you draw the line there are always going to be some grey areas. For instance,
the line between satire and humour and inappropriate content is sometimes very
grey. It is very difficult to decide whether some things belong on the site or
not,” she said.
“We feel responsible to our community to keep them safe
and we feel very accountable. It’s absolutely our responsibility to keep on top
of it. It’s a company commitment. We will continue to invest in proactively
keeping the site safe, but we also want to empower people to report to us any
content that breaches our standards.”
She said some offensive comments may violate Facebook
policies in some contexts, but not in others.
Facebook’s leaked policies on subjects including violent
death, images of non-sexual physical child abuse and animal cruelty show how
the site tries to navigate a minefield.
The files say: “Videos of violent deaths are disturbing
but can help create awareness. For videos, we think minors need protection and
adults need a choice. We mark as ‘disturbing’ videos of the violent deaths of
humans.”
Such footage should be “hidden from minors” but not
automatically deleted because it can “be valuable in creating awareness for
self-harm afflictions and mental illness or war crimes and other important
issues”.
Regarding non-sexual child abuse, Facebook says: “We do
not action photos of child abuse. We mark as disturbing videos of child abuse.
We remove imagery of child abuse if shared with sadism and celebration.”
One slide explains Facebook does not automatically delete
evidence of non-sexual child abuse to allow the material to be shared so “the
child [can] be identified and rescued, but we add protections to shield the
audience”. This might be a warning on the video that the content is disturbing.
Facebook confirmed there are “some situations where we do
allow images of non-sexual abuse of a child for the purpose of helping the
child”.
Its policies on animal abuse are also explained, with one
slide saying: “We allow photos and videos documenting animal abuse for
awareness, but may add viewer protections to some content that is perceived as
extremely disturbing by the audience.
“Generally, imagery of animal abuse can be shared on the
site. Some extremely disturbing imagery may be marked as disturbing.”
Photos of animal mutilation, including those showing
torture, can be marked as disturbing rather than deleted. Moderators can also
leave photos of abuse where a human kicks or beats an animal.
Facebook said: “We allow people to share images of animal
abuse to raise awareness and condemn the abuse but remove content that
celebrates cruelty against animals.”
The files show Facebook has issued new guidelines on
nudity after last year’s outcry when it removed an iconic Vietnam war photo
because the girl in the picture was naked.
It now allows for “newsworthy exceptions” under its
“terror of war” guidelines but draws the line at images of “child nudity in the
context of the Holocaust”.
Facebook told the Guardian it was using software to
intercept some graphic content before it got on the site, but that “we want
people to be able to discuss global and current events … so the context in
which a violent image is shared sometimes matters”.
Some critics in the US and Europe have demanded that the
company be regulated in the same way as mainstream broadcasters and publishers.
But Bickert said Facebook was “a new kind of company.
It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media
company. We build technology, and we feel responsible for how it’s used. We
don’t write the news that people read on the platform.”
A report by British MPs published on 1 May said “the
biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking
sufficient action to tackle illegal or dangerous content, to implement proper
community standards or to keep their users safe”.
Sarah T Roberts, an expert on content moderation, said:
“It’s one thing when you’re a small online community with a group of people who
share principles and values, but when you have a large percentage of the
world’s population and say ‘share yourself’, you are going to be in quite a
muddle.
“Then when you monetise that practice you are entering a
disaster situation.”
Facebook has consistently struggled to assess the news or
“awareness” value of violent imagery. While the company recently faced harsh
criticism for failing to remove videos of Robert Godwin being killed in the US
and of a father killing his child in Thailand, the platform has also played an
important role in disseminating videos of police killings and other government
abuses.
In 2016, Facebook removed a video showing the immediate
aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile but subsequently
reinstated the footage, saying the deletion was a “mistake”.
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