Leaked documents reveal how Facebook handles sex and violence

Ethical dilemmas abound...

An investigative report by The Guardian has exposed a number of documents and manuals used to train Facebook’s moderators, revealing the type of content users are and aren’t allowed to post on the social networking site. For instance, it’s allegedly Facebook’s policy to not immediately remove livestreaming videos of people attempting selfharm, but to wait until “there’s no longer an opportunity to help the person ... unless [the videos] are newsworthy”.

Facebook currently has around 4,500 content moderators whose sole job it is to wade through reports from users of disturbing or inappropriate content, and the company has said it plans to hire another 3,000 to help deal with the massive workload. While this army of screening staff deal with these reports, they apparently don’t touch any of the content when it first gets posted — that job is instead relegated to automated systems and checks.

These issues are obviously ethically complex, and for many people, it will be irksome to see these topics discussed through the lens of corporate interest — no matter how reasonable the policy surrounding each problem may be.