Trolls beware: the days of harassment on social media might be a thing of your sad, sad past and, no, you can’t just hide away under a bridge behind your laptop—there probably isn’t WiFi under there anyway.
As of today, the team at Facebook is looking to clear up those fuzzy lines of their community standards, giving users better-defined guidelines for sharing and posting on the service. “We’re trying to strike the balance based on the way our community works,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, said in an interview. “The landscape is complicated.”
While it is always difficult to open up dialogue surrounding free speech and what that means on such a public forum, there are definitely some positive outcomes from Facebook’s decision to crack down on hateful posts. “Violent, criminal or hateful behavior” is banned, according to the updated rules, and any kind of threatening posts, bullying, posts that are intended to shame others, and anything that encourages suicide or eating disorders are all prohibited.
Another major leap that companies like Twitter have since enacted as well is the explicit banning of any content that promotes sexual violence, including revenge porn. This is an important statement, a necessary one that will hopefully continue to take heed on all Internet platforms. Facebook taking a zero tolerance stand on this kind of hateful posting is a step in the right direction.
Not to mention the small shout out to the #freethenipple wave—women who are actively breast-feeding or are showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring will always be allowed to post on the site. Oh, paintings, sculptures, and other “boobie’s out” art is a-ok as well. We like where this is going, we hope to see a hate-free Internet environment in the future.
images via capitolotc.com
