Hiding & Deleting Comments
When moderating comments on Facebook you have the option to respond to, hide or delete a comment. We use the hide and delete functions when a comment contains hate or poses a risk to our users. Here are the "hide" and "delete" features available to you and how they work:
- Hide Feature: When you hide a comment on one of our posts, it makes it invisible for everyone apart from the one who posted it and the users’ friends. You have the option to ‘unhide’ a comment later — which means the hide feature is a good one to use when you need to talk to the team about how to handle a comment. You can hide it, talk to the team, and then unhide or delete after speaking to the team about how to proceed.
- Delete Feature: Deleting a comment removes it entirely from Facebook. When you delete a comment it removes it entirely from Facebook. Remember, that the delete feature should be used sparingly, as we do not want to be seen to be censoring our users, by preventing them from voicing their views and experiences. See the section on “moderating hate speech” and the “confidentiality checklist” for more detail.
Banning People
Facebook also gives us the option to ban individual users from our spaces. When we ban someone, this means that they will no longer be able to see our page or any of our content. We try not to ban people from our core user groups (eg. refugees), and will only ban core users after we have warned them first.
However, sometimes banning is necessary to keep our spaces safe. To ban someone from our page you first need to hide the comment. Once you have hidden the comment, the option to ban the user from the page appears.
| Moderating Hate Speech Checklist | |
| The DOs: | |
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Apply nuanced scrutiny when moderating offensive comments and hate speech. |
| Ban users who have been warned but continue to post offensive comments towards other users. | |
| Speak to your manager if you are unsure. | |
| Make sure our spaces our safe for all users and free from hate. | |
| Delete comments that are especially profane, offensive, accuse others of misconduct or contain of may insight violence. | |
| Be vigilant of offensive comments in host populations' languages. | |
| The DON'Ts: | |
| Judge users for being frustrated with their situation. | |
| Ban users posting offensive comments without warning them first. | |
| Try to make decisions on your own if you're not sure. | |
| Censor people expressing their opinions and feelings. | |
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Let hate go unchallenged in our spaces. |