Leaked Facebook documents show types of content it allows, says report

Leaked Facebook documents showhow the social media company moderates issues such as hatespeech, terrorism, pornography and self-harm on its platform,the Guardian reported, citing internal guidelines seen by thenewspaper.

New challenges such as "revenge porn" have overwhelmedFacebook's moderators, who often have just 10seconds to make adecision, the Guardian said. The social media company reviews more than 6.5 million reports of potentially fake accounts aweek, the newspaper added.

Many of the company's content moderators have concerns aboutthe inconsistency and peculiar nature of some of the policies.Those on sexual content, for example, are said to be the mostcomplex and confusing, the Guardian said.

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Facebook had no specific comment on the report but saidsafety was its overriding concern.

"Keeping people on Facebook safe is the most important thingwe do. We work hard to make Facebook as safe as possible whileenabling free speech. This requires a lot of thought intodetailed and often difficult questions, and getting it right issomething we take very seriously,"Facebook'shead of global policy management Monica Bickert said in a statement.

Facebook confirmed that it was using software to interceptgraphic content before it went on the website, but it was stillin its early stages.

13 Reasons Why content escalated

The leaked documents included internal training manuals,spreadsheets and flowcharts, the Guardian said.

The newspaper gave the example of Facebook policy thatallowed people to live-stream attempts to self-harm because it "doesn't want to censor or punish people in distress."

Facebook moderators were recently told to escalatetosenior managers any content related to 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix original drama series based on the suicide of a high school student, because it feared inspiration of copycat behaviour, the Guardian reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity ofthe documents published on the Guardian website.