Facebook policy update “Strengthening measures against bullying”

On October 13 (local time), the National Bullying Prevention and Awareness Day in the United States, Facebook announced a revision to its bullying policy. The new policy is strengthening the response to bullying, etc. targeting individuals.

In the new policy, individual content does not alone violate the policy, and bullying targeting individuals with high risk of offline damage is subject to deletion. This includes messages such as notes and comments on personal profiles.

In addition, the protection of so-called public figures such as politicians, journalists and celebrities is being strengthened. Specifically, it is a post that mocks the appearance, demeaning sexual content, or sexually processed images. Facebook explained the reason for strengthening countermeasures, saying that such an attack uses public appearance as a weapon but has nothing to do with what the public figure did.

Facebook is also said to have taken into account the opinions of stakeholders around the world, including human rights experts, women’s safety groups, and representatives of the LGBTIQ community, in this policy revision. Most recently, Facebook has been accused of putting profits over user safety, but it may have a purpose to defend against such criticism. For whatever reason, increased user protection is welcome. Related information can be found here.