According to a recent report by The Guardian, Facebook has to deal with around 54,000 cases of pornography every month. The world’s largest social network has to deal with cases related to revenge pornography and sextortion on a large number.
Facebook had to disable more than 14,000 accounts related to sexual abuse in January. The reported content is based on user feedback, which means that there could be more such accounts going unnoticed by the social media giant.
The company has hired additional 3,000 employees to filter explicit content off its servers and provide a healthy social platform for its users. But the amount of sexual content on Facebook is so overwhelming that the expanded resources are not able to cope up with the data.
Facebook has also told The Guardian that they are employing “image matching” software to speed up the removal of sexually offensive content off Facebook’s servers.
A 53-slide document from Facebook has introduced two “hotkeys” for moderators to help them quickly identify potential cases of sextortion and revenge porn. They explain that the social media site allows “moderate displays of sexuality, open-mouthed kissing, clothed simulated sex and pixelated sexual activity” involving adults. The documents and flowcharts then set out what is permitted on Facebook in detailed sub-categories called “arousal”, “handy-work”, “mouth work”, “penetration”, “fetish” and “groping”. As for sexualised language, Facebook decides whether to allow or ban remarks based on the level of detail they contain.
"Keeping people on Facebook safe is the most important thing we do," said Monika Bickert, head of global policy management at Facebook. "We work hard to make Facebook as safe as possible while enabling free speech."
