IN COMMEMORATION of the World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD)
which was observed globally on Tuesday, September 10, Facebook stepped farther
in its commitment to keep people safe on all of its platforms.
Facebook’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, noted that
since Facebook’s inception, the platform has worked with experts from around
the world to inform users of its policies, practices and products supporting
those at risk of suicide or self-injury.
According to reports made available to National Light,
Facebook has taken in the past year. The social media communication firm’s
senior executive revealed additional actions it plans to take.Davis said that
the intention is to keep people safe on its apps, especially those who are most
vulnerable.
“Earlier this year, we began hosting regular consultations
with experts from around the world to discuss some of the more difficult topics
associated with suicide and self-injury. These include how we deal with suicide
notes, the risks of sad content online and newsworthy depictions of suicide.
Further details of these meetings are available on Facebook’s new Suicide
Prevention page in our Safety Center,” she stated.
As a result of these consultations, Davis said, Facebook has
made several changes to improve how it handles content, tightened its policy
around self-harm to no longer allow graphic cutting images to avoid
unintentionally promoting or triggering self-harm, even when someone is seeking
support or expressing themselves to aid their recovery.
“On Instagram, we’ve also made it harder to search for this
type of content and kept it from being recommended in Explore. We’ve also taken
steps to address the complex issue of eating disorder content on our apps by
tightening our policy to prohibit additional content that may promote eating
disorders.
And with these stricter policies, we’ll continue to send
resources to people who post content promoting eating disorders or self-harm,
even if we take the content down. Lastly, we chose to display a sensitivity
screen over healed self-harm cuts to help avoid unintentionally promoting
self-harm,” Davis noted.
She said that Facebook’s engagement with experts has proven
so valuable that it is also hiring a health and well-being expert to join its
safety policy team.
“And for the first time, we’re also exploring ways to share
public data from our platform on how people talk about suicide, beginning with
providing academic researchers with access to the social media monitoring tool,
CrowdTangle.
To date, CrowdTangle has been available primarily to help
newsrooms and media publishers understand what is happening on Facebook. But we
are eager to make it available to two select researchers who focus on suicide
prevention to explore how information shared on Facebook and Instagram can be
used to further advancements in suicide prevention and support,” she added.
On how it intends to make its platforms safer for difficult
conversations, Davis said that Facebook has a unique role in facilitating those
kinds of connections and it is taking additional steps to support those who are
discussing these sensitive topics, especially young people.
“To help young people safely discuss topics like suicide,
we’re enhancing our online resources by including Orygen’s #chatsafe guidelines
in Facebook’s Safety Center and in resources on Instagram when someone searches
for suicide or self-injury content.
“The #chatsafe guidelines were developed together with young
people to provide support to those who might be responding to suicide-related
content posted by others or for those who might want to share their own
feelings and experiences with suicidal thoughts, feelings or behaviors,” she
further stated.
She also assured that Facebook will continue to invest in
people, technology and resources so that it can do more to protect people on
its apps.
.
0 Comments