Meta Inc Reveals 15 Harassment And Intimidation Content From 10 Thousand Posts On Facebook
JAKARTA - Facebook for the first time on Tuesday 9 November revealed the prevalence of bullying and harassment on its platform. They said the content was viewed between 14 and 15 times per every 10,000 views on the site in the third quarter.
The company, which recently changed its name to Meta, also said in its quarterly content moderation report that bullying and harassment content is seen between 5 and 6 times per 10,000 content views on Instagram. The amount of harassment and intimidating content on the Facebook platform compared to Instagram is almost three times higher.
The social media giant, long under scrutiny over its handling of abuses on its services, has come into the spotlight after former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that included research and discussions about Instagram's effect on teens' mental health and whether the Facebook platform fueled division.
Haugen said the documents show the company is taking advantage of users' safety. Facebook denies this characterization, and they say the document was used to paint a "false picture."
The documents, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, have prompted calls for Facebook to be more transparent and have raised questions about whether metrics such as prevalence provide a complete picture of how the company handles breaches.
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Facebook says the number of bullying and harassment captures only instances where the company doesn't need additional information, such as user reports, to decide whether the content violates its rules.
They said that of the 9.2 million pieces of content that companies removed from Facebook for violating bullying and harassment rules, 59.4% were found proactively.
"Business and harassment is a unique challenge and one of the most complex issues to address because the context is so important," said the company's head of global security, Antigone Davis, and director of product management Amit Bhattacharyya in a blog post.