We have had 3 students livestreaming their sexacapes on Facebook, a student livestreaming a movie premier earlier. But what caught everybody’s notice was a recent murder of a 28-year-old Chicago man was captured live on Facebook. One minute the man was hanging out with friends and livestreaming on Facebook. The next, there are sounds of gunshots and screaming. Watching this gruesome spectacle on Facebook raises questions about how can the network giant allow such livestreaming. He was shot Wednesday night, and yet Facebook hasn’t pulled the video from its platform, which begs the question: Why not? According to Facebook, the video doesn’t violate its community standards because it doesn’t believe the video celebrates violence. According to the Facebook gods, its falls under a different category: Raising awareness. Therefore instead of removing those types of videos, Facebook marks them with a user warning. Now consider another post in which an ISIS sympathizer killed a police commander and livestreamed it earlier this week. Facebook immediately pulled off that video. As said above, it is really a thin line which you have to adhere to prevent getting banned or suspended. Facebook’s community standards are broken into eight categories, including attacks on public figures, bullying and harassment, sexual violence and regulated goods. But exactly what it allows and when isn’t clearly defined and may rest solely in the hands of someone at Menlo Park. The community standards state that it “aims to find the right balance” to keep people safe, encourage respectful behavior, acknowledge cultural diversity, and empower people to control what they see in their feeds. But you should remember that while a video of a murder is OK by Facebook’s standards, showing a woman’s nipple isn’t. The company does, however, “always allow” photos of women showing post-mastectomy scarring or actively engaging in breastfeeding. Although some genuine breastfeeding posts have been removed. More so before 2014, moms had been complaining that their breastfeeding pics were removed. In 2014, Facebook relaxed its breastfeeding policy a bit to allow for these types of non-sexual images. However that took considerable effort and a hashtag movement, #FreeThe Nipple, which brought Facebook’s attention to the banning of female nudity on sites like Instagram and Facebook. Facebook does allow nude paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nudes — but sometimes it gets it wrong. Facebook has in the past removed many paintings which it deemed as gross including an artwork depicting Donald Trump’s babydick. Similarly a Facebook post by Lee Rowland of the ACLU was removed because it contained a photo of a nude statue. Facebook’s head of policy management Monica Bickert later accepted that the photo didn’t actually violate Facebook’s policies but was just a mistake. Facebook draws a hard line on selling prescription drugs, marijuana, firearms and ammunition– which it says are prohibited on the platform. But you are allowed to post photos of, say, yourself smoking marijuana out of a bong. Facebook, like other online communities, relies on a mix of user reports and internal moderation to flag inappropriate or illegal content. That means Facebook has 1.65 billion people helping enforce its standards — but what’s considered “appropriate” is far from universal.
