Meta, Formerly Facebook, Gives Estimate of Bullying, Harassment on Its Platforms for First Time

Meta said its bullying and harassment numbers only captured instances where the company did not need additional information.

By Reuters | Updated: 10 November 2021 10:09 IST

Meta, Formerly Facebook, Gives Estimate of Bullying, Harassment on Its Platforms for First Time

Meta has been in the spotlight since whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents

Highlights

Facebook recently changed its name to Meta amid controversies
Haugen said documents show the company picked profits over user safety
The documents have spurred calls for Meta to be more transparent

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, for the first time on Tuesday disclosed the prevalence of bullying and harassment on its platform, saying such content was seen 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 was seen between 5 and 6 times per 10,000 views of content on Instagram.

The social media giant, long under scrutiny over its handling of abuses on its services, has been in the spotlight after a former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that include research and discussions about Instagram's effects on the mental health of teens and on whether Meta's platforms stoke divisions.

Samsung Wins Patent for a Tri-Fold Smartphone With Specialised Barrier Layer for Improved Durability

Haugen has said the documents show the company picked profits over user safety. Meta disputed this characterization, saying the documents were being used to paint a "false picture."

The documents, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, have spurred calls for Meta to be more transparent and have raised questions over whether metrics such as prevalence give the full picture of how the company handles abuses.

Meta said its bullying and harassment numbers only captured instances where the company did not need additional information, such as a report from a user, to decide if the content broke its rules.

WhatsApp and Other Facebook Apps Get the New ‘Meta’ Branding

They said that of the 9.2 million pieces of content the company removed from Meta for breaking its bullying and harassment rules, it found 59.4 percent proactively.

"Bullying and harassment is a unique challenge and one of the most complex issues to address because context is critical," the company's global head of safety, Antigone Davis, and product management director Amit Bhattacharyya said in a blog post.

Facebook Is Testing Paid Subscriptions in Groups to Attract Creators

© Thomson Reuters 2021

Is JioPhone Next the 4G phone for everyone that Reliance promises? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.