Facebook retools its censorship machinery

Facebook might be evolving too fast for Mark Zuckerberg’s liking. This week’s uproar over the social-media giant’s robotic decision to delete a user’s post showing a naked adolescent girl simultaneously confirmed Facebook’s status as a source of news and underlined the fact that it’s not quite ready for the responsibility this entails. 

The problem was that the naked girl appears in one of the most memorable photos ever taken during America’s intervention in Vietnam. She’s caught in a horrifying moment, fleeing with other children from her village, which is seen in the background engulfed in smoke following a napalm barrage by US jet fighters. The girl was naked because he clothes were burned off, along with, it was reported, portions of her skin.

Facebook is understandably on guard against photos depicting full frontal nudity, and particularly of children in compromised situations. Somehow, by the hand of an administrator or the algorithm of a computer program, policy came up against history and the point of history was lost. 

Facebook boss and co-founder Zuckerberg might think that, having reversed its decision on deleting the photo and publicly apologised, his company has made good, learned its lesson and there will no more such outcries. He’s in for more battering on the issue of freedom of expression, however. The premise that the interests of the online community outweigh freedom of expression and the public “right to know” is flawed.

While Facebook feeds are still dominated by vacation snaps and breezy banter, the network is increasingly being used for political proselytising and commercial purposes beyond Facebook’s own mercenary ends. Its community standards are constantly being tested.

In a noteworthy line, British newspaper the Telegraph said the row over the Vietnam War photo demonstrated that Zuckerberg – who insists he’s nothing more than head of a tech firm – has in fact “become a media tycoon by stealth”. It’s a sobering combination – a media chieftain who’s also well versed in high technology.

“Facebook is the place, more than any other, where the world spends its time,” the Telegraph’s commentator wrote. “Once you take into account Instagram, which the company also owns, the site’s billions of users spend an average of 50 minutes a day” in their combined grasp. If the owner wished to manipulate public opinion, there would be cause for concern in what Facebook chooses to ban and what it chooses to show.

We have had countless examples of the pros and cons of the social media, both intimately related to their growing status as news outlets. They have reported what the conventional media have missed or deliberately ignored, and usually far faster. But the sharing networks are chronically prone to overheating and overreaction, and they often get the facts wrong.

When it comes to the news, this is all part of the rapidly changing landscape. These days millions of people check Facebook as soon as they rise from bed and rarely lose sight of it thereafter. They learn there’s been an earthquake or plane crash and get the election results while the conventional news outlets are still polishing their presentation of the details. 

But the chief reason why that poor Vietnamese girl is back in the headlines again is that no conventional newspaper would have hesitated to publish it, whereas Facebook users abruptly discovered their newest news site was not so dependable after all. Had Facebook existed in 1968 and one of its users had taken the picture, perhaps that awful truth would never have seen the light of day.