This Is How Facebook Decides Whether To Delete Your Content Or Not

I think it¡¯s fair to say that Facebook is everyone¡¯s favourite online indulgence. Almost all of our friends and family are there, and it¡¯s one of the most frequented apps on your smartphone. We all post updates, comment on others¡¯ posts and share content on Facebook -- always, all the time.

Ever wondered how you never encounter obscene or offensive content on Facebook? Here¡¯s some insight into how Facebook decides to keep or delete content on its platform.

According to access gained by SZ-Magazin, Germany¡¯s largest broadsheet newspaper, Facebook circulates an internal guideline to all its content moderators on where to draw the line of acceptable content. This is the first time such a Facebook document has found itself in the public domain.

The report claims the logo on the bottom right represented by a heart and globe is that of the Facebook department in charge of creating the rules and guidelines of deleting content from the popular social network.

Furthermore, as a ground rule Facebook protects certain categories of content as Protected Content (PC for short). An Attack on a Protected Category of content automatically categorizes it as Hate Speech. And hate speech is instantly deleted on Facebook, since it¡¯s against the company¡¯s business model. Because hate speech creates an exclusionary environment, people don¡¯t want to share that type of content, which is in direct conflict with Facebook¡¯s objective to offer people a safe space to share content and interact with friends (and look at advertising, while they¡¯re at it).

Protected Content on Facebook comprises of the following: Sex, Religious affiliation, National origin, Gender identity, Race, Ethnicity, Sexual orientation, Disability or serious illness. Attacks based on content on any one of these categories are immediately deleted on Facebook.

Furthermore, there are a few sub-categories of Protected Content on Facebook. Content attacking someone¡¯s age, employment or social status gets banned on Facebook. Attacking someone on their appearance, political affiliation and religious orientation is flagged as hate speech.

The Facebook content deletion guideline further describes how religion itself isn¡¯t protected, while members of religious groups are part of its Protected Content. It¡¯s a similar story for Countries. You can get away by making fun of India or Pakistan, but calling out people on the basis of their nationality is not allowed on Facebook.

Sentences allowed on Facebook (and what¡¯s not allowed)

The document sheds more light with specific examples of what sort of content is allowed on Facebook and stuff that attracts a moderator¡¯s ire.

For example, ¡°fucking migrants¡± is allowed on Facebook, but ¡°fucking Muslims¡± is not. Similarly, a sentence like ¡°Migrants are dirty¡± is allowed, but Facebook will remove content that includes stuff like ¡°migrants are dirt.¡±

Self-destructive behaviour is allowed on Facebook, but bullying someone isn¡¯t

As long as self-destructive behaviour doesn¡¯t actively encourage people to try it out themselves is allowed on Facebook, according to the content deletion guideline. So a clip of Aamir Khan extinguishing a cigarette on his tongue from the famous Bollywood song ¡°Aati kya Khandala!¡± is fine as long as it doesn¡¯t come with a caption asking people to engage in the act. Pictures of people posting content clearly indulging in self-harm is allowed on Facebook, according to the document, and content moderators are encouraged to forward them to help hotlines.

Do not try this at home or Facebook will delete it

According to the Facebook content guideline, creating a ranking of private individuals or discriminating against one another based on their physical appearance or personality traits alone is considered bullying by Facebook and is not allowed on the social network.

This rule also illustrates with an example claiming that ¡°pictures of three women at the beach must be deleted if captions such as ¡°Which one is hotter? Please comment!¡± appear underneath them.¡±

Delete or ignore?

Look at where Facebook draws the line when it comes to keeping or deleting embarrassing pictures of people caught during various acts: Public urination, vomiting and menstruating.

The images on top are accompanied with embarrassing or humiliating messages and that¡¯s why they need to be deleted, as Facebook categorizes it as a form of online bullying, while the images under the ignore tab don¡¯t show any explicit malicious intent behind them, so they stay on.

Public figures to be treated differently than Private individuals

Private individuals are all of us common folk on Facebook. You¡¯re a public figure (in Facebook¡¯s eyes) only if you hold public office, or you have more than 100,000 followers, or you are from the media making public statements, or if you have been mentioned in news reports five times or more in the past two years.

If you are a public figure you are screwed on Facebook

For these public figures, normal rules of private individuals don¡¯t apply on Facebook¡¯s content deletion policy. Here the above images are asked to be ignored because they show public figures like Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas), Harry Styles and actor Owen Wilson embarrassing themselves in public -- which they should know better about!