How much influence do you really have over what you see in your Facebook news feed?
A Montreal West man recently found out when he interacted with the social media giant over a post he found offensive and dangerous. A few Sundays ago, Stephen Hughes was aimlessly scrolling through his Facebook feed when something grabbed his attention.
“I think disgust and anger raced through my body at that time,” Hughes told Global News.
It was a video of a young man dancing to music while waving a handgun around. The post came up in his feed because it had been liked by one of his Facebook friends. Hughes was outraged.
“With all that’s going on in the world, all the shootings, you would think this would be a red flag right away,” he said.
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Hughes noticed the video had been viewed millions of times and shared tens of thousands of times.
“Some kid is going to see how many likes this kind of thing gets you, and it’s just going to lead to some kid getting a gun. This guy didn’t shoot himself by accident but some other kid might do it,” he said.
The post came from a page called Hype 666. Its followed by over 200,000 people. The page says it shares visual art and music content. Weapons show up regularly.
“I decided contacting Facebook would be the right thing to do, and say ‘This should be flagged, it is inappropriate, and how is this still out there?'” Hughes recounted.
To his surprise, the social media giant responded a few days later.
“They told me, ‘we understand this might be offensive to you, but we can show you ways to block this stuff from your Facebook,’ instead of ‘yes, this is inappropriate, insensitive and we will remove this from Facebook immediately,'” Hughes said.
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Facebook told him the video did not violate its community standards. The social network explained to Global News that buying and selling guns on the site is not allowed, but there is no problem with simply displaying one.
“There’s content we object to because it’s misleading or promoting things that are dangerous, like anti-vaccination rhetoric for example, but it’s not in direct violation of the terms of service,” said Matthew Johnson, director of education at MediaSmarts.
According to Johnson, the best way to provoke action could be to hit Facebook in the wallet.
“Going to advertisers and saying, ‘I don’t like this, I’m disturbed to see your advertisements next to this content,’ frequently will have a bigger impact than complaining to the platform about the content,” Johnson said.
The digital media literacy expert said if you see something you don’t like, do not amplify it by sharing it. You could also have a talk with the person who did. Most of all, remember where Facebook makes its money: advertisers.
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