A former Facebook moderator has given a “unique” insight into the social network’s policy when it comes to obscene, offensive or graphic content and the unnamed employee’s rant is quite an eye-opener..
Claiming that the staff involved in Facebook’s content filtering is made up from third-party firm workers in developing countries and that these mods deal with a huge amount of sharing and linked content daily the ex-staffer says has told of the guidelines for acceptability for the online community which sees more than 845 million active users sharing photos and posting links daily.
Starting with nudity and items of a sexual nature the ex-employee says mods are told to remove “any OBVIOUS sexual activity, even if naked parts are hidden from view” but when it comes to graphic violence “deep flesh wounds” and “excessive blood is ok to show” this as long as no “insides” are on display. Racist remarks were also talked of by the former worker who said slurs will not be tolerated and must be deleted unless it’s used in jest, as “humour overrules hate speech”.
We’ve all seen some pretty nasty stuff pop up on Facebook, through the hacking attacks of last year which saw horrific images of animal and human mutilation appearing on the news feed with little or no response from Facebook to clean up the mess, however blatantly sexual images were swiftly dealt with and quite often images which may be a little risqué but by no means offensive or tasteless will get removed with the poster receiving diminished privileges through the social site – Harsh?
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