Violating ‘community standards’: Facebook displays warning to potential likers of 2 FB pages

April 6, 2022 - 5:21 PM
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A woman holds a smartphone with Meta logo on it in front of a displayed Facebook logo in this illustration taken, October 28, 2021. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)

Facebook flagged two pages with millions of followers on the platform that were found to violate some of its community standards.

Attempting to “like” the VinCentiments Facebook page will show the following notice to the Facebook user.

“This Page has shared posts that violate our Community Standards. Review posts on this Page before liking it.” 

VinCentiments Facebook flag
(Screengrab by Interaksyon from Facebook)

VinCentiments, the page of the production group of controversial director Darryl Yap and cinematographer Vincent Asis, has 2,652,736 likes and 5,667,359 followers on the social networking platform as of writing.

This is where the production team uploads their short films which have recently included content supportive of some candidates in the 2022 elections. Some of their videos were also perceived to bash some presidential bets.

One of Yap’s movie posters was previously called out by the Psychological Association of the Philippines for how it portrayed those with mental health conditions.

The director was also criticized by educators and a social media personality for creating a video about online classes which portrayed teachers in a bad light.

Another page, SMNI News, was also flagged by the social networking platform for the same reason.

SMNI Facebook flag
(Screengrab by Interaksyon from Facebook)

Attempting to “like” the platform will flash a notice which says that the page has similarly “violated” its community standards.

SMNI is a media network owned by Apollo Quiboloy, a pastor who appeared on the FBI’s “most wanted list” for his alleged role in sex trafficking.

It has 552,173 likes and 1,162,479 followers on Facebook.

A BBC News correspondent previously noticed that the network aired footage of Scarborough Shoal that was originally filmed by the London-based news outlet without credits.

The local network was also one of those that shared photos of a party-list’s alleged tarpaulin which had a spelling error.

Last November, SMNI reported that the police have recovered some tarpaulins from Gabriela Women’s Party from supposed communist rebels. Instead of “para sa babae,” the slogan reads as “para sa babe.”

The group disowned it and said that it was the police’s “gimmick” to red tag them.

‘We take our role seriously’ 

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, says that it has community standards as it “recognizes how important it is for Facebook to be a place where people feel empowered to communicate.”

“We take our role seriously in keeping abuse off the service,” the company added.

“These standards are based on feedback from people and the advice of experts in fields like technology, public safety and human rights. To ensure everyone’s voice is valued, we take great care to create standards that include different views and beliefs, especially from people and communities that might otherwise be overlooked or marginalized,” it said.

Meta said that when it “limits expression,” it is done “in service” of the following values: Authenticity, safety, privacy and dignity.

The company said that it flags content related to the following:

  • Violence and criminal behavior: Violence and incitement, dangerous individuals and organizations, coordinating harm and promoting crime, restricted goods and services, fraud and deception
  • Threats to safety: Suicide and self-injury, child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity; adult sexual exploitation, bullying and harassment, human exploitation, privacy violations
  • Objectionable content: Hate speech, violent and graphic content, adult nudity and sexual activity, sexual solicitation
  • Threats to integrity and authenticity: Account integrity and authentic identity, spam, cybersecurity, inauthentic behavior, misinformation, memorialization
  • Threats to respecting intellectual property: Intellectual property
  • Content-related requests and decisions: User requests, additional protection of minors

Meanwhile, both VinCentiments and SMNI have not yet released a statement on Facebook’s action on their respective pages.