Facebook’s Community Standards are a total joke... no later than two days ago I came across a cartoon of a guy on public transport taking an ’upskirt’ without the woman’s consent only to start puking when he saw on his phone that she was menstruate (I kid you not). I of course reported it instantly. I promptly got an anodyne notification that ”I had done the right thing” reporting it it but that it was found ”not to violate Facebook’s community standards” so would not be taken down. I reported it again (this time as ”nudity or pornography”) and within 20 minutes my account was suspended for 24 hours. They’re dirt. And they’re too powerful.
From your description, it sounds like you abused the reporting tool by reporting content that you knew did not violate the stated guidelines. Their response was to temp-ban you. To me, that seems reasonable.
It doesn't really matter that it was a shitty, gross joke. That's not the criteria for removal, and they told you that before you reported it again.
Though, a temp-ban might be a little harsh. If the only problem was with reporting, they could easily have dealt with that by silently ignoring future reports from your account.
I was unbanned within a couple of hours and the cartoon was nowhere to be found when I was allowed back in, probably because there was a deluge of coincident reports.
I see. So, the thrust of your complaint is not that moderation is too lax, but that it is capricious and arbitratry? I could definitely see consistent moderation being a weakness for Facebook.
Basically, yes. I wish I had summarised my point in those terms. I was just so incensed at that moment in time that I didn’t plan my post very carefully. Sorry and thanks.
Why did this anger you so? Just a cartoon I'm thinking.
edit: this is getting ridiculous at this point. downvotes for starting a conversation. come on.
Cartoon or not, or is a depiction of sexual objectification, harassment, profaning somebody’s personal space in a public context, and a denigration of womanhood. What is there to like about it?
One thing to like about it is that the poster had the ability to exercise speech without being censored because somebody found their speech distasteful. Of course, opinions on the value of censorship vary. One could argue that Facebook has a special responsibility to society due to their ubiquity, that their community standards are not stringent enough for that reason, and that they should be censoring more speech than they currently do. I guess that's what you mean when you say their standards are a "total joke." If that's so, I still think it would be good practice for them to moderate based on their publicly posted policies and not make exceptions.
Facebook has the right to moderate content on their platform however they choose. I think that saying that Facebook is "dirt" and "too powerful" because they moderate the content on their own website according to their own rules is a bit excessive, although I might agree with those descriptors with respect to some other things that they do.
I was surprised at how explicit their community standards are. After a thorough read, it seems that in this case, they exercised them with consistency and even-handedness. I also find that to be something to like about your story. 24 hour account suspension seems like reasonable sanction for abuse of the reporting system. Abuse of the reporting system makes moderation difficult and obviously has to be penalized to prevent users from taking down non-violating posts just because they are in disagreement. Allowing users to do that is certainly not a recipe for healthy discourse.
You reference an eternal (and eternally valid) debate, namely one’s right to express oneself versus another’s right to not be exposed to material perceived to be upsetting. I am usually on your side of the camp, firmly believing that somebody’s right to be offended by what I express is entirely their problem and does not impinge upon me nor does it create an implicit obligation that I not offend them.
I do, however, draw a line when there is material circulating that normalises the rising trend of boys and young men using their cellphones to take unauthorised snapshots of women’s underwear and sometimes genitalia without their consent. Such photos would clearly violate Facebook’s Community Standards, but a cartoon does not?
My reference to them being “dirt” and being “two powerful” were separate sentences for a reason. I wanted there to be a bit of distance between the two statements. They are ‘dirt’ because they remove photos of breastfeeding mothers (probably the least offensive form of partial nudity one can think of, and the most natural thing in the world) as being somehow offensive, but they apparently they give this smut a free pass.
They’re too powerful because they have no competitors that could really supplant them. There’s plenty of alternative social networks to choose from, yes, but moving to a social media network without your contacts totally disrupts your habits. To a very real extent, we who use Facebook are a captive audience.
The irony of all this is that in less than an hour my account was reactivated and the cartoon was gone. I suspect I wasn’t the only person who reported it, perhaps multiple times each, and eventually Facebook had to capitulate and as a token of apology released me early from my suspension.
But think of that... in a working, democratic institution, you know what you are held guilty of, what the process is, and what the penalties might be. You get a chance to argue your case (or better still, have it argued for you). This is citizenship in a democracy with institutions. On Facebook, we’re all little serfs, and then there’s the feudal lord (the company itself) that gets to degree by fiat what is and what isn’t wrong (often not even bothering to explain the motivation so that it might become doctrine or at least a heuristic to use when making decisions) .
So in short, no: I am against more censorship by faceless incommunicado Facebook contractors sitting in their cubicles half way across the world with minimal pay. I the power to censor to be returned to the people.
I shan't stand by when I see somebody being molested and humiliated and I shan't stand by when I see material that advocates molestation and humiliation. I hope you wouldn't either.
Aren't the pictures of Donald Trumps "thicc ass" attempting to climb a hill while playing golf considered sexual objectification, harassment, profaning somebody’s personal space in a public context, and a denigration of late-manhood?
One's a cartoon depiction, another is a real photograph taken without consent. Why would they take down the former but leave the latter to proliferate?
