Facebook content management controversies
and Meta Platforms have been criticized for their management of various content on posts, photos and entire groups and profiles. This includes but is not limited to allowing violent content, including content related to war crimes, and not limiting the spread of fake news and COVID-19 misinformation on their platform, as well as allowing incitement of violence against multiple groups.
Intellectual property infringement
Facebook has been criticized for having lax enforcement of third-party copyrights for videos uploaded to the service. In 2015, some Facebook pages were accused of plagiarizing videos from YouTube users and re-posting them as their own content using Facebook's video platform, and in some cases, achieving higher levels of engagement and views than the original YouTube posts. Videos hosted by Facebook are given a higher priority and prominence within the platform and its user experience, giving a disadvantage to posting it as a link to the original external source. In August 2015, Facebook announced a video-matching technology aiming to identify reposted videos, and also stated its intention to improve its procedures to remove infringing content faster. In April 2016, Facebook implemented a feature known as "Rights Manager", which allows rights holders to manage and restrict the upload of their content onto the service by third-parties.Violent content
In 2013, Facebook was criticized for allowing users to upload and share videos depicting violent content, including clips of people being decapitated. Having previously refused to delete such clips under the guideline that users have the right to depict the "world in which we live", Facebook changed its stance in May, announcing that it would remove reported videos while evaluating its policy. The following October, Facebook stated that it would allow graphic videos on the platform, as long as the intention of the video was to "condemn, not glorify, the acts depicted", further stating that "Sometimes, those experiences and issues involve graphic content that is of public interest or concern, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism, and other violence. When people share this type of graphic content, it is often to condemn it. If it is being shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate violence, Facebook removes it." However, Facebook once again received criticism, with the Family Online Safety Institute saying that such videos "crossed a line" and can potentially cause psychological damage among young Facebook users, and then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron calling the decision "irresponsible", citing the same concerns regarding young users. Two days later, Facebook removed a video of a beheading following "worldwide outrage", and while acknowledging its commitment to allowing people to upload gory material for the purpose of condemnation, it also stated that it would be further strengthening its enforcement to prevent glorification. The company's policies were also criticized as part of these developments, with some drawing particular attention to Facebook's permission of graphic content but potential removal of breastfeeding images. In January 2015, Facebook announced that new warnings would be displayed on graphic content, requiring users to explicitly confirm that they wish to see the material.War crimes
Facebook has been criticized for failing to take down violent content depicting war crimes in Libya. A 2019 investigation by the BBC found evidence of alleged war crimes in Libya being widely shared on Facebook and YouTube. The BBC found images and videos on social media of the bodies of fighters and civilians being desecrated by fighters from the self-styled Libyan National Army. The force, led by General Khalifa Haftar, controls a swathe of territory in the east of Libya and is trying to seize the capital, Tripoli. BBC Arabic found almost one hundred images and videos from Libya shared on Facebook and YouTube, in violation of their companies' guidelines. The UK Foreign Office said it took the allegations extremely seriously and is concerned about the impact the recent violence is having on the civilian population.In 2017, a Facebook video of Libyan National Army special forces commander Mahmoud al-Werfalli was uploaded showing him shooting dead three captured fighters. The video was then shared on YouTube over ten thousand times. The International Criminal Court used it as evidence to indict al-Werfalli for the war crime of murder. The BBC found the original video was still on Facebook two years after his indictment and also discovered videos showing the bodies of civilians being desecrated. These were taken in Ganfouda, a district of Benghazi which was under siege by the LNA between 2016 and 2017. More than 300 people, including dozens of children died during the siege. A video uncovered by BBC Arabic showed soldiers mocking a pile of corpses of dead civilians and trampling on bodies. Among them was a 77-year-old woman, Alia Hamza. Her son, Ali Hamza, had five family members killed in Ganfouda.
Ali Hamza told BBC Arabic, "I sent links to lawyers to send to the ICC in the Hague against Khalifa Haftar and his military commanders regarding the massacres of civilians", said Hamza. In the video, the LNA soldiers label the civilians as terrorists. Human rights lawyer and war crimes specialist Rodney Dixon QC reviewed the evidence BBC Arabic found. "If groups are using those platforms to propagate their campaigns then those platforms should seriously look at their role because they could then be assisting in that process of further crimes being committed", he said. After presenting our findings to Facebook they removed all the videos that show a suspected war crime taking place. However, they opted not to suspend any of the accounts which we found linked to the images. Erin Saltman, Facebook's policy manager for counterterrorism in Europe, Middle East and Africa, told BBC Arabic, "Sometimes there are very conflicting narratives of whether or not the victim is a terrorist, or whether it's a civilian over who's committing that act, we cannot be the pure arbiters of truth." But Facebook and YouTube's own community guidelines explicitly prohibit content that promotes or depicts acts of violence.
Facebook Live
, introduced in August 2015 for celebrities and gradually rolled out for regular users starting in January 2016, lets users broadcast live videos, with Facebook's intention for the feature to be presenting public events or private celebrations. However, the feature has been used to record multiple crimes, deaths, and violent incidents, causing significant media attention.Facebook has received criticism for not removing videos faster, and Facebook Live has been described as a "monster cannot tame" and "a gruesome crime scene for murders". In response, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in May 2017 that the company would hire 3,000 moderators to review content and invest in tools to remove videos faster.
Pro-anorexia groups
In 2008, Facebook was criticized for hosting groups dedicated to promoting anorexia. The groups promoted dramatic weight loss programs, shared extreme diet tips, and posted pictures of emaciated girls under "Thinspiration" headlines. Members reported having switched to Facebook from Myspace, another social networking service, due to a perceived higher level of safety and intimacy at Facebook. In a statement to BBC News, a Facebook spokesperson stated that "Many Facebook groups relate to controversial topics; this alone is not a reason to disable a group. In cases where content is reported and found to violate the site's terms of use, Facebook will remove it."Pro-mafia groups' case
In Italy in 2009, the discovery of pro-mafia groups, one of them claiming Bernardo Provenzano's sainthood, caused an alert in the country and brought the government to rapidly issue a law that would force Internet service providers to deny access to entire websites in case of refused removal of illegal contents. The amendment was passed by the Italian Senate and now needs to be passed unchanged by the Chamber of Deputies to become effective.Facebook criticized the government's efforts, telling Bloomberg that it "would be like closing an entire railway network just because of offensive graffiti at one station", and that "Facebook would always remove any content promoting violence and already had a takedown procedure in place."
Trolling
On March 31, 2010, The Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls' subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a "suicidal CUSS", and posting graphic images on her Facebook memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old student out for a drive fatally crashed her father's car into a highway pylon; trolls emailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.There have been cases where Facebook "trolls" were jailed for their communications on Facebook, particularly memorial pages. In Autumn 2010, Colm Coss of Ardwick, Britain, was sentenced to 26 weeks in jail under s127 of the Communications Act 2003 of Great Britain, for "malicious communications" for leaving messages deemed obscene and hurtful on Facebook memorial pages.
In April 2011, Bradley Paul Hampson was sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of using a carriage service to cause offense, for posts on Facebook memorial pages, and one count each of distributing and possessing child pornography when he posted images on the memorial pages of the deceased with phalluses superimposed alongside phrases such as "Woot I'm dead".