FACEBOOK is saying NO to delete violent death, abortion, and self-harm videos in an attempt to keep away from censoring its users, as per the ethical guidelines on the website.
With the company under the pressure from the world leaders so as to eliminate the controversial content, the substantial guidelines followed by Facebook employees have been unveiled recently.
As per the leaked documents, Facebook will grant its users the permission to lifestream the self-harm endeavors as it does not wants to punish or censor people in pain who are trying to suicide.
The content, whether it be a photo or video, will be eliminated “once there is no longer any chances to help the person—except the incident is predominantly noticeable and interesting.
According to one of the documents, “Removing self-harm footage from the site may hamper the users’ chances of getting real-world help from the real-life coteries.
The document further states that users posting such self-harming content may be ray of hope for getting help, and removing such content may truncate their hope. This is the rule the company has applied to the suicidal posts also almost a year ago taking into consideration at the Lifeline and Samaritans advice. The company now wants to widen it to other content types on the platform.
Monika Bickert—the head of global policy management of the company—supported leaving some of the suicide content on the site.
She said, “We rarely notice public events or certain moments that are seen in the broader public discussion that justify continuing this content on our platform. We take help of publishers and supplementary experts to aid us comprehend what those moments are. For instance, viewers shared videos of the people jumping from the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Those might be the livestreamed moment on Facebook in which we wouldn’t have removed the footage both—during and after the broadcast.”
She also said that at times when someone posts about suicide or self-injury, the company wants to ensure that the family members and friends can provide help and support.
With Facebook’s being a social media giant and still growing at a rapid pace, it also has to face continuous difficulties in finding way to deal with the new challenges.
