Publishing Our Internal Enforcement Guidelines and Expanding Our Appeals Process | Hacker News Reader

Publishing Our Internal Enforcement Guidelines and Expanding Our Appeals Process

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49 pointsuptown29 comments

I'm interested in this section:

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/objectionable_co...

The guidelines refer to "protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disability or disease."

Under Tier 2 attacks, it bans "Statements of inferiority implying a person's or a group's physical, mental, or moral deficiency."

Several of those protected characteristics -- I'm thinking specifically about religion and sexual orientation -- absolutely have a moral dimension. Religion explicitly deals with morality, and the reason attitudes about sexual orientation have shifted over the last few decades is because views about the morality of gay relationships have shifted.

What I'm wondering is: Would a post criticizing the morality of certain religious adherents violate these standards? Would a post in which someone argues that Obergefell was decided wrongly, and that marriage should be between a man and a woman violate these standards? Would a post in which a person says they believe homosexual acts to be morally wrong violate these standards?

Thank you for raising these questions: I am concerned myself, as you seem to be.

Not intending to argue but this is analogous to defending private property (which for some religions is a moral right) in a communist country, for example.

Would a post stating the inferiority of people at the middle of the bell curve in these categories be considered a "Tier 2 attack"? Traditionally they have not on Facebook.

I have reported videos that people share that includes sexual acts, gun violence (with deaths), gang executions and bloody traffic accidents, and I think Facebook removes around 10% of what I report, the rest continues to live on their platform.

However, my friend who takes model pictures (some (most) with not a lot of clothes on) have received month long bans for not covering up nipples correctly, here is some of his shots: https://www.instagram.com/tonnynathanfoto/, it is interesting how a bit of nipple can result in a month long ban, but someone executing another person on camera is just fine.

I have the same experience as you do. I've reported the pictures from the bloodbath inside the Bataclan, everything is apparently totally fine and I also know people who had issues with nipples as well.

American's concern about nipples is both hilarious and sad.

It is really. I was surprised a few years back to find out there was even an anti-breastfeeding movement. My wife wasn't breastfed because her mom said in those years women were taught it was gross and backwards and women should be using formulas as a more "modern" approach. I thought it was a joke at first.

I have read some time ago that this is a cultural thing in the US. They are worried more about sexuality than violence.

By incorrect covering of nipples, do you mean this example from his portfolio?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhHcR7eg7LZ/?taken-by=tonnynatha...

That one passed the filter/reports, I think he was testing it a bit.

Wow, that is iconic. I hope that gets published somewhere.

Well for one thing it's much easier for an automated system to detect pornography.

My spouse has hit this too. They report blatant hate speech and get back a note saying, "We reviewed this and it fits within our guidelines." Then other much more mundane things are removed. It makes no sense.

They have some really weird internal rules.

https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-cens...

> One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.

This reads like an investment bank's disclaimer that's 5 pages long in tiny print at the back when they sell you questionable risky investments.

It's designed to make it look like there is a full vetted and functioning process when at the end of the day, it's just a human mod who makes the call.

Like with banks and other customer care agents, the only times these actions can really be challenged or changed is if there is a furore that affects FB's image.

There is just so much trolling and bullying on fb that if they had a real appeal process, it'll quickly become a flood because if they take Hate speech seriously, then the slippery slope leads them to monitor other online problems that is caused by FB.

So no. I think this is just a nice sounding disclaimer for a process that'll only be used when the next storm hits fb but won't actually help clean up all the hate and evil on fb.

I'm fascinated by some of the stuff in here.

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/objectionable_co...

> Do not post images of real nude adults, where nudity is defined as... "visible anus and/or fully nude close-ups of buttocks unless photoshopped on a public figure..."

or this bit:

> Uncovered female nipples except in the context of breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness, or gender confirmation surgery), or an act of protest

which would seem to allow people to post nipple photos to protest Facebook's no nipple policy and get away with it.

> and get away with it.

Good luck. With that. It'l still probably be taken down and there's nothing stopping them from denying the appeal as well.

Just photoshop a male nipple on top

To me its fascinating how they attempt to navigate political correctness. Inevitably there will be conflicting rules, such as freedom of a religion which preaches against homosexuality (all of them?) and protection of sexual orientation. It really is the ultimate satire of western culture, "nipples are bad! unless...."

I'm seen a FB announcement every other day these past two weeks. Kogan has it right, Facebook is in a PR crisis, and I think that's happening because the effects of the CA scandal are impacting the business much more than they're letting on.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/24/facebook-in-...

Viewing the actual guide requires logging into Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/

> We are committed to removing content that encourages real-world harm, including (but not limited to) physical, financial, and emotional injury.

(Emphasis mine)

That's rich. Facebook is in the business of intentionally showing users emotionally distressful content on purpose in order to drive them into a depression. They do this on purpose, they tell us about it proudly, they are not shy. Facebook experiments on its users by taking content they now deem bad, and specifically increasing the amount users see it, so as to intentionally affect their mood and make then sad and depressed. Facebook is so proud of it too!

This guide is a bunch of corporate speak for PR. It means nothing to Facebook; it couldn't, they love breaking the rules they try to assign to others.

Edit: Also Facebook happily separates out the time you spend on Facebook from what they call the "real world". I'd argue that logging in to Facebook and seeing any content at all is likely to cause a person "real world harm" for all kinds of reasons. But Facebook would like you to think that only your friends can hurt you in the "real world", not Facebook itself. But they do hurt people. Every day. And that will be x1000 if they helped foreign powers elect a dictator in the USA.

Humans are strange creatures. Most people I know on FB literally put their absolute best face forward on there. Pictures of doing things with their family, sharing good things that happen to them, etc. However the net effect is reducing the happiness of everyone. I am not sure that this is a problem Facebook can solve.

https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-t...

that is absurd. I got around it by blocking the overlay in uBlock.

I'm having no apparent problem viewing it without logging in. I'm browsing from Chrome on Mac, starting with all cookies, cache, and history cleared. No blockers or filters are installed, either.

I wonder if you and I are hitting different sides of an A/B test or something like that?

Hilarious to have this and 2 lines below in the HN feed is a story from vice about how they ignored stolen identities posted to their platform for years - including SSNs, drivers licenses, etc.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16913056

The existence of a formalized system tricks the brain. You start debating the questions the system itself poses, not questioning the things the system holds axiomatic.

For example: Debating the boundaries of Facebook's nudity rules when it comes to breastfeeding, or newsworthy image like that napalm image in news is misdirection. Allowing a nipple here and there is the fake debate Facebook has framed for us.

The real problem is that facebook has decided, for me all my friends, that we're all prudes. Without asking a single one of us, they just decided. They've found that we can't be trusted with the ability to scroll past hardcore porn in our timeline the same way we ignore photos of your ugly dog. Not only can we not handle that, it can't be behind an account setting, or twitter-style clickwall on every photo, or age gated over-18 accounts only. Nope. It's all too harmful of content for us unwashed masses.

It's a con. Even if Facebook doesn't mean it as such. They're constantly conning themselves too.

[From False News section]

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/integrity_authen...

> Reducing the distribution of content rated as false by independent third-party fact-checkers

Wonder who the independent 3rd party fact-checkers are. If one was in the business of "manufacturing consent" and wanted to control what is pushed to the front and what isn't, those fact checkers would be a great starting point. How easy is to influence them?

> Collaborating with academics and other organizations to help solve this challenging issue

Does that include, say, think-tanks? Specific universities? How are those picked and how are they rewarded for the collaboration. That seems like another easy area to influence. Don't go just to Facebook, but go a step further and try to influence these organization to push a particular story / product / idea etc.

But if there's no accountability, then what's the point in publishing it?

They will execute against their published (or private) policies, and there's no external oversight or way to get them to comply with anything other than what they decide are the standards.

It's not a democratic system. It's a private, totalitarian censorship enforced by a corporation with a clear liberal-politics bias ( why? because that's where they think most of their resources are tied up -- their advertisers' liberal city-dwelling customers are wealthier and thus more important than conservative, poorer country folk, and their worker drones -- mostly Cali based -- so FB staff will be predominantly liberal. )

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