The old adage "Think before you speak" often gets lost in the digital age. But the rules still apply—even on the Internet. Which is why Facebook on Monday moved to clarify its Community Standards.
While the actual policies are not changing, the clarifications aim to promote an environment "where people feel motivated and empowered to treat each other with empathy and respect," Facebook said.
Facebook's Community Standards are now broken into four sections: Safety, respectful behavior, securing account and personal data, and protecting intellectual property.
Among them, Facebook now provides more guidance on policies for self-injury, dangerous organizations, bullying and harassment, criminal activity, sexual violence and exploitation, nudity, hate speech, and violence and graphic content.
"For example, what exactly do we mean by nudity, or what do we mean by hate speech?" head of global policy management Monika Bickert and deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby wrote in a blog post.
"It's a challenge to maintain one set of standards that meets the needs of a diverse global community," Bickert and Sonderby wrote. "For one thing, people from different backgrounds may have different ideas about what's appropriate to share."
A video posted as a joke by one person may be upsetting to another, but might not violate Facebook's standards.
Similarly, some countries outlaw content regarded as blasphemous—a principle not covered in the Community Standards. The social network, however, will still evaluate reported content, and restrict it in that country, if necessary.
To report violations on Pages, profiles, or individual pieces of content, click the "Report" link in the top-right corner; Facebook reviewers will investigate. Or, simply unfollow, block, or hide content you find offensive. And there's always the option of starting a heated public argument in the comments section.
Your friends and family aren't the only ones complaining about Facebook content, though. The company on Monday also revealed its latest Global Government Requests Report for the second half of 2014.
Overall, numbers continue to increase: The amount of content restricted for violating local law grew by 11 percent, reaching 9,707 items.
Requests for account data, though relatively flat, did rise slightly from 34,946 to 35,051. Facebook also reported an increase in data requests from certain countries like India, and a decline from the U.S. and Germany.
Available online, the document includes demands for content removal and account data, as well as national security requests under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and through National Security Letters.
"We publish this information because we want people to know the extent and nature of the requests we receive from governments and the policies we have in place to process them," Bickert and Sonderby said.