Facebook Will Be Questioned over Failure to Remove Reported Images

A powerful group of MPs will question the social network over its failure to remove sexualized images of children. This move was initiated by a BBC investigation, which discovered that posts reported under its own guidelines were not being removed. Indeed, it turned out that only 18% of images and posts the channel flagged using Facebook’s tools were deemed by moderators to breach the website’s guidelines, which explicitly forbid sexualized images of children.

The BBC reported 100 posts, including the pictures found in groups specifically aimed at men interested in child sexual abuse images and stolen images of real children. When the BBC submitted examples of the images to the social network, it reported them to the police. Now the culture, media and sport select committee is going to question the company as part of its fake news inquiry. Apparently, the investigation will now be expanded to include Facebook’s moderation policy.

The BBC was surprised that the images had been passed to the police, given that Facebook’s moderators had failed to remove them, saying that it did not breach community guidelines. In the meantime, Facebook claimed that it followed “the industry’s standard practice” in reporting the images, but refused to say which images provided by the BBC prompted its referral to the police. Since then, Facebook has removed each item it was able to identify as having been flagged by the BBC reporters (overall, more than 100 posts).

It must be said that much of Facebook’s moderation is outsourced to contractors processing huge numbers of posts each day. However, such serious issues are normally dealt with by in-house teams. It is unknown whether the moderators who decided not to remove the reported were employed directly by Facebook of not.