Mystery of how many firm employs to check content

FACEBOOK users are able to flag inappropriate content by clicking the ‘report’ button, accessible via the small downward arrow in the top right-hand corner of each Facebook post.

A multiple choice questionnaire then appears, asking the user why the content they have flagged shouldn’t be on Facebook.

It could be because it features ‘nudity or pornography’, because it ‘humiliates’ someone, because it is ‘inappropriate, annoying or not funny’, or because it is a photograph of themselves or their family that they do not want to be shared on the social network.

When the user clicks one of those boxes, it automatically generates a report and sends it to Facebook’s ‘thousands’ of people moderating content around the world.

One of the moderators then assesses the post according to the social network’s guidelines, and decides whether it indeed needs taking down. If it is allowed to remain, they will automatically send the user who complained a message stating that it did not breach ‘community standards’.

According to the social network, the moderators are ‘highly trained experts who provide 24/7 cover’.

It would not disclose how many of them are in the UK, but some are based in Dublin, where Facebook has its European headquarters.

A spokesman for the technology giant said: ‘We continue to refine the way we implement our policies to keep our community safe, especially for people that may be vulnerable or under attack.

‘Facebook is constantly improving its reporting and reviewing system so we can give people free expression on Facebook, but so we also remain a safe community.’