Facebook Expands Harassment Policy To Protect Public Figures

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FILE - In this March 20, 2018 file photo, Facebook's head of global safety policy Antigone Davis speaks during a roundtable on cyberbullying with first lady Melania Trump, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Facebook will expand its policies on harassment to remove more harmful content, the company said Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021 in its latest change following congressional testimony from a whistleblower who faulted the social media giant for not doing enough to stop harmful content. “We do not allow bullying and harassment on our platform, but when it does happen, we act,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, wrote in a blog post.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

CALIFORNIA (AP) — Facebook will expand its policies on harassment to remove more harmful content, the company said Wednesday in its latest change following congressional testimony from a whistleblower who faulted the social media giant for not doing enough to stop harmful content.

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Under the new, more detailed harassment policy, Facebook will bar content that degrades public figures, including celebrities, elected officials and others in the public eye. Existing policies already prohibit similar content about private individuals.

Another change will add more protections from harassment to government dissidents, journalists and human rights activists around the world. In many nations, social media harassment has been used in efforts to silence journalists and activists.

Lastly, the company based in Menlo Park, California, announced it will ban all coordinated harassment, in which a group of individuals work together to bully another user. That change will apply to all users.

“We do not allow bullying and harassment on our platform, but when it does happen, we act,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, wrote in a blog post.

The changes come amid mounting criticism of the company’s handling of hate speech, misinformation and negative content. Concerns about harassment range from teenagers bullying each other on Instagram to the coordinated abuse of journalists and dissidents by groups linked to authoritarian governments.

Last week, former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen told Congress that the company has done too little to address its responsibility for spreading harmful content, and too often chooses profit over its users’ best interests.

Days later, the company announced that it would introduce new features designed to protect kids, including one encouraging them to take a break from the platform.

Celebrities, even those who profit handsomely off Facebook and Instagram, haven’t been shy about criticizing the company.

In an interview earlier this year with The Associated Press, singer and actress Selena Gomez said she began pressing tech companies like Facebook to clean up their sites in 2017 after a 12-year-old commented on one of Gomez’s Instagram posts: “Go kill yourself.”

“That was my tipping point,” she said. “I couldn’t handle what I was seeing.”


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Political
Political
2 years ago

This applies to everyone except Trump right?

Kollelfaker
Kollelfaker
2 years ago

So now criticizing a politician will be banded What about our constitutional rights to criticize our political leaders when they aren’t doing the job

But attacking Jews is alright

Democrats support Jew haters and terrorists.
Democrats support Jew haters and terrorists.
2 years ago

So protecting fake news journalists who are democratic party propagandists from being called out for their lies and propaganda. Leftwing proggresives who call themselves human rights activists will now be more protected from being called out for their Jew hatred and terrorist support. No more calling put the democratic party memebers of congress when they spew Jew hatred and hamas support. All must now hail elected officials of course only if they are mebers of the democratic party, republicans will stipl be open season.