The network has provided more in-depth guidelines than ever before. Indeed, the rule book covers more details on permitted subject matter, content surrounding drugs, sex, bullying, and hate speech. Until now, Facebook has used a “community standards” page that showed what could be posted. However, it has been lacking in details and only giving a general overview of rules. The company has now published a much longer rule book. Monika Bickert, the company’s vice president of product policy and counter-terrorism says the new page is designed to clear any confusion. “You should, when you come to Facebook, understand where we draw these lines and what’s OK and what’s not OK,” Bickert told reporters today Facebook has taken the brunt of government criticism for online hate speech and similar content. This has been particularly true in Europe, where the Committee of Standards in Public Life said the social giant should be prosecuted for not dealing with offensive content. In response, the social network published its privacy principles to appease regulators. It was the first time Facebook’s privacy policies were made public in Europe. Facebook has also come under fire for removing some content seemingly on behalf of governments. Of course, the company was also at the center of Russia’s attempts to undermine the last US Presidential Election through social media manipulation.
Data Scraping Scandal
In recent weeks, Facebook has been embroiled in a data management scandal. A report from the New York Times and The Observer showed a researcher had access to personal data from over quarter of a million Facebook users. From these 270,000 members, the researcher could access 50 million friends and pass the data to Cambridge Analytica. The scandal has called into question Facebook’s privacy settings and data use.
