In terms of size, social networking giant Facebook is bigger than big — over 2.7 billion comments are posted to the site each and every day. That's far more content than Facebook's 3,000 or so employees can moderate, so they largely rely on special filtering software to weed out offensive content. But that filtering process has landed Facebook in hot water after mother Diana Cornwell was forced to remove photos of her child with Down syndrome after they were flagged as offensive content.
Of course, there was nothing offensive about the photos, which depicted her son participating at a local Special Olympics event. Still, a day after posting them, Facebook contacted her with a message stating that to keep her account active, Cornwell had to remove her "photos that contain hate speech, support for violent organizations, or threats to harm others." Facebook then proceeded to make her confirm that she was removing the offensive images, which included pictures of her son posing with a cartoon cow.
Facebook initially sentenced Cornwell to a three-day suspension, but that ban was lifted after a story aired on a local NBC affiliate. Facebook has also apologized for their error without saying exactly how or why the pictures were flagged, but that's not good enough for the mom. She's actively working to gather support from the internet to force Facebook to change the way they review photos. Said Cornwell, "with technology, you have ways to correct problems. They have the ability to change how they do this."
(Source: news.yahoo.com)
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Facebook marks pictures of a child with Down syndrome offensive
In terms of size, social networking giant Facebook is bigger than big — over 2.7 billion comments are posted to the site each and every day. That's far more content than Facebook's 3,000 or so employees can moderate, so they largely rely on special filtering software to weed out offensive content. But that filtering process has landed Facebook in hot water after mother Diana Cornwell was forced to remove photos of her child with Down syndrome after they were flagged as offensive content.
Of course, there was nothing offensive about the photos, which depicted her son participating at a local Special Olympics event. Still, a day after posting them, Facebook contacted her with a message stating that to keep her account active, Cornwell had to remove her "photos that contain hate speech, support for violent organizations, or threats to harm others." Facebook then proceeded to make her confirm that she was removing the offensive images, which included pictures of her son posing with a cartoon cow.
Facebook initially sentenced Cornwell to a three-day suspension, but that ban was lifted after a story aired on a local NBC affiliate. Facebook has also apologized for their error without saying exactly how or why the pictures were flagged, but that's not good enough for the mom. She's actively working to gather support from the internet to force Facebook to change the way they review photos. Said Cornwell, "with technology, you have ways to correct problems. They have the ability to change how they do this."
(Source: news.yahoo.com)