The social media giant’s views on sex, violence and hate speech are exposed after criticism over its handling of extreme content.
Pictures and footage of violent deaths, abortions, the non-sexual abuse of children, and self-harm do not have to be deleted according to the leaked guidance for moderators.
More than 100 internal training manuals, spreadsheets and flowcharts revealing Facebook’s secret internal policies on upsetting material were obtained by The Guardian.
The documents show how internal policy at the social media giant compares with its testimonies before a number of government committees as it receives increasing attention for the content hosted on its platforms.
Facebook has been criticised for hosting terrorism-related material, as well as a number of violent broadcasts.
One source told The Guardian that «Facebook cannot keep control of its content. It has grown too big, too quickly.»
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that over the next year Facebook would be adding 3,000 staff to its 4,500-strong content moderation team.
It follows criticism over a series of graphic posts on the site.
Last month in Thailand, Wuttisan Wongtalay filmed himself murdering his 11-month-old daughter live on the site, before killing himself.
Last week, a 12-year-old boy in Argentina accidentally shot dead a girl of the same age while streaming on Facebook Live.
The Guardian reports that Facebook advises «remarks such as ‘Someone shoot Trump’ should be deleted, because as a head of state he is in a protected category.
«But it can be permissible to say: ‘To snap a b****’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat’, or ‘f*** off and die’ because they are not regarded as credible threats.»
Similarly, Facebook will allow the live-streaming of attempts of self-harm cause it «doesn’t want to censor or punish people in distress».
Earlier this year, a panel of MPs criticised social media companies for not working hard enough to remove hate speech posted online.
The Conservative manifesto for the forthcoming election has pledged to introduce sanctions for social media companies which fail to remove such content upon notice.
Monika Bickert, the head of global policy management at Facebook, said: «We work hard to make Facebook as safe as possible while enabling free speech.
«This requires a lot of thought into detailed and often difficult questions, and getting it right is something we take very seriously.
«We’re going to make it simpler to report problems to us, faster for our reviewers to determine which posts violate our standards and easier for them to contact law enforcement if someone needs help.»
