Facebook to have new rules against mass harassment
Facebook announced updates of the company’s bullying and harassment policies to protect people from mass harassment and intimidation. “We’ll now remove more harmful content that attacks public figures, as well as provide more protections for public figures who have become famous involuntarily — like human rights defenders and journalists”, the company said.
The company’s global head of security Antigone Davis wrote in a blog the company “will remove coordinated efforts of mass harassment that target individuals at heightened risk of offline harm, for example victims of violent tragedies or government dissidents — even if the content on its own wouldn’t violate our policies.”
”We will also remove objectionable content that is considered mass harassment towards any individual on personal surfaces, such as direct messages in inbox or comments on personal profiles or posts. We will require additional information or context to enforce this new policy.”
”In addition, we will also remove state-linked and adversarial networks of accounts, Pages and Groups that work together to harass or silence people, for example a state-sponsored organization using closed private groups to coordinate mass posting on dissident profiles.”
Davis said the company remove attacks on public figures that compass a wide range of harms and that Facebook is widening the rules to remove also;
- Severe sexualizing content
- Profiles, Pages, groups or events dedicated to sexualizing the public figure
- Derogatory, sexualized photoshopped images and drawings
- Attacks through negative physical descriptions that are tagged to, mention or posted on the public figure’s account
- Degrading content depicting individuals in the process of bodily functions
David said more protections will be offered public figures like journalists and human rights defenders who have become famous involuntarily or because of their work. ”These groups will now have protections from harmful content, for example content that ranks their physical looks, as other involuntary public figures do.”
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