{"id":2814,"date":"2018-07-20T16:40:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T12:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2018-07-20T16:40:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T12:40:05","slug":"facebook-pledges-to-proactively-lock-accounts-of-under-13s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/07\/20\/facebook-pledges-to-proactively-lock-accounts-of-under-13s\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook pledges to proactively lock accounts of under-13s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook has pledged to proactively lock children’s accounts\u00a0if it\u00a0suspects they are under the age of 13 after a documentary exposed failings in its content moderating system.<\/p>\n

The social media giant said it will double the number of people working on its safety and security teams to 20,000, after\u00a0Channel 4\u00a0 exposed that Facebook moderators were told not to take any action if content showed a child visibly below Facebook’s 13-year age limit.<\/p>\n

Facebook reviewers\u00a0have now been told that they can suspend any\u00a0account if they\u00a0have a “strong indication” that belongs to someone\u00a0under the age limit. Users are then not able to access their accounts if they do not provide proof of their age.<\/p>\n

Up until this change, reviewers would only lock accounts if they were reported specifically for being underage.<\/p>\n

Facebook vice president of global policy management Monika Bickert said that the documentary “raised important questions” about the company’s policies and processes, including guidance given during training sessions in Dublin.<\/p>\n

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“It\u2019s clear that some of what is in the program does not reflect Facebook\u2019s policies or values and falls short of the high standards we expect,” Ms Bickert\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

“We take these mistakes incredibly seriously and are grateful to the journalists who brought them to our attention. We have been investigating exactly what happened so we can prevent these issues from happening again.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he documentary exposed abusive and violent videos of assaults on children on the site, despite being flagged by users as inappropriate and receiving requests to have it removed.<\/p>\n

Channel 4’s Dispatches sent an undercover reporter to work as a content moderator in Facebook\u2019s largest centre for UK content moderation.<\/p>\n

The work is outsourced to a company called Cpl Resources\u00a0in Dublin, which has worked with Facebook since 2010.<\/p>\n

The investigation reveals the training given to content moderators to demonstrate how to decide whether content reported to them by users, such as graphic images and videos of child abuse, self-harming, and violence should be allowed to remain on the site or be deleted.<\/p>\n

In the documentary, Dispatches reported that thousands of reported posts remained unmoderated and on the site while they were filming, beyond Facebook\u2019s stated aim of a 24-hour turnaround, including potentially posts relating to suicide threats and self-harm.<\/p>\n

Facebook claimed that the backlog the undercover reporter experienced “occurred on select days” in March and April, and was cleared when additional reviewers were hired and reports were sent to other locations with capacity to handle them.<\/p>\n

Ms Bickert said that it was “untrue” that this backlog included suicidal content, because they are considered high content and “almost 100 pc of high priority reports during those two months were reviewed within the set timeframe”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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F<\/span>acebook has tried to aid children before on its site,\u00a0launching an initiative\u00a0with the NSPCC\u00a0to allow children to access counselling for bullying through Childline. The trial did not result in any calls to the national helpline.<\/p>\n

This new pledge comes amid mounting\u00a0calls for a new internet regulator\u00a0to\u00a0facilitate children\u2019s access to help, and ensure that terms and conditions and community standards were written in language that children could understand across all social media sites.<\/p>\n

A House of Lords Communications Committee inquiry is currently considering whether there is a\u00a0need for new laws to govern internet companies.<\/p>\n

This inquiry will consider whether websites are sufficiently accountable and transparent, and whether they have adequate governance and provide behavioural standards for users.<\/p>\n

The committee is hearing evidence from April to September 2018 and will launch a report at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Telegraph<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook has pledged to proactively lock children’s accounts\u00a0if it\u00a0suspects they are under the age of 13 after a documentary exposed failings in its content moderating system. The social media giant said it will double the number of people working on its safety and security teams to 20,000, after\u00a0Channel 4\u00a0 exposed that Facebook moderators were told …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2816,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}