Reuters: Facebook Releases Long-Secret Rules on How it Polices the Service

From Reuters:

Facebook on Tuesday released a rule book for the types of posts it allows on its social network, giving far more detail than ever before on what is permitted on subjects ranging from drug use and sex work to bullying, hate speech and inciting violence.

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Facebook for years has had “community standards” for what people can post. But only a relatively brief and general version was publicly available, while it had a far more detailed internal document to decide when individual posts or accounts should be removed.
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More From Facebook’s Announcement:

One of the questions we’re asked most often is how we decide what’s allowed on Facebook. These decisions are among the most important we make because they’re central to ensuring that Facebook is both a safe place and a place to freely discuss different points of view. For years, we’ve had Community Standards that explain what stays up and what comes down. Today we’re going one step further and publishing the internal guidelines we use to enforce those standards. And for the first time we’re giving you the right to appeal our decisions on individual posts so you can ask for a second opinion when you think we’ve made a mistake.
We decided to publish these internal guidelines for two reasons. First, the guidelines will help people understand where we draw the line on nuanced issues. Second, providing these details makes it easier for everyone, including experts in different fields, to give us feedback so that we can improve the guidelines – and the decisions we make – over time.
We decided to publish these internal guidelines for two reasons. First, the guidelines will help people understand where we draw the line on nuanced issues. Second, providing these details makes it easier for everyone, including experts in different fields, to give us feedback so that we can improve the guidelines – and the decisions we make – over time.

Read the Complete Facebook Blog Post
See Also: What’s Not Included in Facebook’s ‘Download Your Data’ (via Wired)

Download Your Data” hardly tells you everything Facebook knows about you. Among the information not included:

• information Facebook collects about your browsing history
• information Facebook collects about the apps you visit and your activity within those apps
• the advertisers who uploaded your contact information to Facebook more than two months earlier
• ads that you interacted with more than two months prior

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