Facebook has dealt with a seemingly never-ending string of controversies in recent months relating to how it decides what kind of content can and cannot remain on the site. However, Facebook’s troubles aren’t going to ease up anytime soon; more fuel was thrown on the fire this week when The Guardian published an allegedly leaked internal rulebook from the social media giant, detailing how it handles sex, violence, terrorism and more.

According to these rules, some of the surprising content allowed on the site includes video of abortion (provided it does not depict nudity), livestreams of self-harm, some videos of violent death, and more. The report also revealed the unfair stress placed on moderators, noting that they need to make a decision on whether a post should be blocked in just 10 seconds.

Facebook responded with a statement, acknowledging the difficulty of its task while not refuting the report.

“We work hard to make Facebook as safe as possible while enabling free speech,” Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monica Bickert, said in a statement. “This requires a lot of thought into detailed and often difficult questions, and getting it right is something we take very seriously.”

This report is a pretty big bombshell, and it includes tons of information Facebook likely never wanted to see the light of day. Stay tuned for how public reaction shapes Facebook’s actions moving forward.

Recommended Resources

BitDefender Traffic Light is a free cross-browser add-on that intercepts, processes and filters all Web traffic, blocking any malicious content and taking browser security to new levels.

Private Internet Access is an award-winning, cost-effective VPN solution. The use of an anonymous and trusted VPN is essential to your online privacy, security and identity protection.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!