by Varsha Sivaram
THIS isn’t a question that many might think to ask, but it’s come up after three cases of Facebook taking down posts in Singapore have gained traction. Five days ago (July 4), Ms Teo Soh Lung – an activist and former ISA detainee – had her post “Police Terror” removed “for violating community standards”, according to freelance journalist Kirsten Han.
Shortly after (July 7), Ms Han herself received a notice that her post – in support of Ms Teo and a reproduction of “Police Terror” – had been taken down for the same reason. This sparked a ban on her posting for 24 hours.
In late June (June 23), blogger Andrew Loh had his post about violations of Cooling-Off Day rules taken down by Facebook – but in his case, Facebook restored the post and issued him an apology just three days later (June 26).
Ms Teo’s post, originally posted on Function 8 and reproduced below, details her recent experience with the police. This was after a police report was filed against her by the Elections Department for allegedly breaching the Parliamentary Elections Act during the Bukit Batok by-election.
Mr Roy Ngerng has also come out in support of the two, asking Facebook for an explanation on why the removals have been made.
So what are these community standards?
Facebook is clear that it “removes content” that violates community standards – but what exactly are these standards? The website outlines them here, and they’re largely to do with issues of safety – threats of harm, the promotion of unsafe activities ranging from self harm to criminal acts, the degrading and shaming of private individuals, and so on.
“People use Facebook to share their experiences and to raise awareness about issues that are important to them. This means that you may encounter opinions that are different from yours, which we believe can lead to important conversations about difficult topics. To help balance the needs, safety, and interests of a diverse community, however, we may remove certain kinds of sensitive content or limit the audience that sees it.”
Bans on these grounds are also not new to Facebook, at least globally. They’re considered one of the least-free social networks – as opposed others such as Twitter or YouTube – due to their inconsistencies in restricting content. For example, their decision went back and forth on whether to ban beheading videos – they eventually ended up banning them. However, in order to maintain their presence in Turkey, Facebook abided by authorities’ requests to “[block] Turkish users’ access to a number of pages containing content that the authorities had deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad”.
In Ms Teo’s case, community standards don’t seem to have been violated; “Police Terror”, albeit provocative, is Ms Teo’s recount of her experiences with the police, namely the seizure of her electronic devices.
We asked Facebook to comment on the issue, but did not receive a response.
Could it be hate speech? But there are no minorities attacked. Direct threats of physical harm? Ms Teo mentions her friend “assuring [her] that she would set her dogs on the police if they dare go [to her friend’s farm] to arrest [her]” – that doesn’t seem very likely. Bullying and harassment? The police force isn’t a private individual, which nixes any possible bullying or harassment, according to Facebook.
Ultimately, the final decision to take something down is also usually up to the social media giant itself, rather than the community at large; the number of reports on a post has no impact whether it will be removed or not, so it said on their community standards page.
Yet, in an interview with The New York Times, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, said that Facebook also “has no plans to automatically scan for and remove potentially offensive content”, and “will still rely on users to report violations of the standards”.
What happens when you report a post?
If you see something that doesn’t seem quite right, you’re only a few clicks away from making your concerns known to Facebook.
Where the G comes in
There is also another party at play, one that can overstep Facebook’s own standards should the website accept its request: The G. This is to address the gap between posts that do not violate community standards, but go against the laws of the country in question.
“Governments also sometimes ask us to remove content that violates local laws but does not violate our Community Standards. If after careful legal review we find that the content is illegal under local law, then we may make it unavailable only in the relevant country or territory.”
– Facebook’s Community Standards
Statistics of these requests are made available to the public – both data requests (for official investigations), and requests to restrict content. According to Facebook’s statistics, from January 2013 to December 2015, none of the 966 data requests by the G in Singapore have resulted in any content restrictions. In that period, data requests were at their highest in the second half of 2015, with 214 requests made by the G.
Mr Loh, Ms Han, and Ms Teo have all contacted Facebook with regards to their bans – only Mr Loh has heard back from them, with their apology:
“A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was a mistake, and we sincerely apologize for this error. We’ve since restored the content and you should now be able to see it.”
It isn’t lost on netizens that the three individuals are vocal civil society activists. Conspiracy theories about groups of users ganging up to get Facebook to block their activities have surfaced. It’s a pity that Facebook isn’t forthcoming with a response, given that Singaporeans are some of the most active social media users in the world – we spend an average of two hours and 12 minutes on social media per day, with the global average being two hours.
Featured image by Sean Chong.
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