FACEBOOK’S COMMUNITY STANDARDS ARE POOR
Facebook is a platform used for connecting friends and family. We also use Facebook for selling and purchasing stuff, discovering interesting events to go to, planning and organizing events, promoting yourself or your cause. People set up fundraisers for a person or an organization in need or a charity on Facebook too.
Many of the things we see on Facebook are important stuff like breaking news, really important news, and positive vibe stuff like hilarious memes, beauty blogging, food and drink recipes, quotes, as well as contacting clients and customers and growing your business.
HOWEVER, Facebook has become a sad reality for being a playground for adult bullies and trolls. There is a very dark side to Facebook’s bullying. For instance, people use Facebook too for malicious reasons, reasons that Facebook didn’t intend for. Bullying/harassment, hate speech, animal cruelty, selling of contraband like illegal weapons/guns without permit and even alcohol is sold on Facebook without license.
I will explain to you what is not allowed on Facebook and how Facebook fails to keep their clients and users safe.
According to Facebook Community Standards, you cannot bully or harass people, you cannot post hateful content that targets a protected group, and you are also not allowed to post graphic content or threats of violence or hardcore porn. People who come across this kind of stuff have an obligation to report it to Facebook. Learn more about Facebook’s community standards here.
Well, common standard of Facebook to not remove comments like this . Facebook seems to favor money and profit over keeping the public safe.
There are a lot of disturbing content I have reported to Facebook for violence, racism, misogyny, antisemitism and Islamophobia and homophobia and hate speech against disabled people. For example, this threat here in the screenshot was discovered on a xenophobic page’s post which attracted a lot of sexist comments and threats of violence.
Apparently it did not violate community standards on credible threat of violence.
For starters what is wrong with the comment? People might say ‘free speech’ but to me free speech does not mean you need to incite violence against anybody. The comment in the screenshot IS targeted hate speech against women, as it he promotes it as ‘morals’ thus sending out a really bad message to men with the message ‘it’s okay to hit women’ in short. Also no matter what a woman or anyone else has done, if they themselves were attacking people or animal abuse or something like that, it is NEVER okay to step down to their level. Don’t be a violent person or a bully. It is never a good look particularly when you apply for a job. It also sends a negative message to bullies who might get the idea to use violence particularly at schools where bullying is a big issue. Lastly, violence or threatening ANYONE with violence is never an excuse or acceptable, ever.
Facebook’s poor standards also include unwarranted censorship (for example in September last year where they removed a post regarding the iconic Vietnam War napalm girl for “displaying nudity”. Other examples of censorship include: Facebook removing images containing mothers breast feeding, or post-mastectomy surgery photos especially ones that were used to raise awareness of breast cancer. Also, Facebook sometimes censors minorities voices, and that is not good particularly over in countries like America, where racism and misogyny as well as other forms of hate speech and hate crime is a huge issue.
Facebook also does not bother to verify ID’S of profiles suspected to be fake. There are lots of fake Profiles that I have reported to Facebook, who takes quite a lot down. But however, sometimes it takes more than one report for them to take action and sometimes they even state that the profile “does not violate community standards”. Facebook needs to keep their users safe by removing fake profiles. People set up fake profiles for a lot of reasons, harassing and trolling being the number one reason followed by fraud and phishing scams. An example of this is a profile who harassed me last year was reported to Facebook. That said account was removed for a short period of time- but to no one’s surprise Facebook restored it. That’s one way Facebook allows fake profiles.
And finally, Facebook IS designed for connecting friends and family and sharing your public views/opinions. BUT remember that freedom of speech comes with responsibility- that means NOT to use threats of violence, targeted hate speech or the sale of illegal items or bullying/harassment or animal abuse.
