Call it Facebook’s prison reform.
Facebook says it will now warn users when they violate its rules rather than suspending their posting privileges and locking them up in Facebook jail.
The first strike for most violations results in a warning. Users will lose access to some features if Facebook removes additional posts. Typically, Facebook jail sentences begin after the sixth strike.
According to Monika Bickert, vice president of content policy at Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, the old rules will still apply to more serious violations, such as terrorism or child exploitation, and offenders will face immediate restrictions.
What exactly is Facebook jail? What is the reason for the change?
According to Bickert, the shift to a more lenient approach is the result of feedback from around the world, as well as the company’s civil rights auditors and Oversight Board.
“The one consistent refrain that we heard from those external groups was that they thought the penalty system needed to be fairer, more proportionate,”
Every day, Facebook polices billions of posts, photos, videos, and comments. For years, its moderation systems have been chastised for failing to provide context and making poor decisions.
Users are upset because they have been denied access to their accounts, communities, and, in some cases, businesses for days or weeks at a time.
“We started looking at the data, and what became clear to us was that the majority of people who violate our policies are well-intentioned people who either made mistakes, maybe they posted something close to the line, and we actually made the wrong decision,” said one of the policy’s violators “She stated. “There is plenty of room for education and explaining our policies.”
What causes you to be banned from Facebook?
Facebook uses a set of rules to determine what people are allowed to say on the platform. Human moderators enforce these standards, but Facebook mostly relies on automated tools. Both are prone to making mistakes.
Conservatives claim that Facebook unfairly isolates right-wing voices and perspectives in the social media equivalent of solitary confinement.
According to the civil rights community, Facebook does too little to protect communities targeted by hate speech and threats while stifling the speech of those communities’ residents.
“This change to our penalty system is motivated in part by our recognition that we will not always get it right,” Bickert explained.
What happens when you are imprisoned on Facebook?
When you are in Facebook jail, you are unable to post or comment for at least a day. According to Facebook, it does not comment on the inner workings of its penalty system, which is designed to keep people from gaming it. However, it intends to provide more information to users about why their posts were removed.
“In recognition of all of the complexity that goes into a content moderation system, we want to focus on education and improving understanding of where the policy lines are for the majority of people who violate who we know are not likely to be persistent violators,” Bickert said.
