Facebook has said that it will continue to allow users to show footage of beheading videos on its site, as long as they are “posted in the right context”.
The social networking site has faced recent criticism from MPs, advertisers and the general public after it relaxed its rules concerning offensive and upsetting material – subsequently allowing for a video of a woman being beheaded to be posted to the site without warning.
Since then, Facebook’s UK and Ireland policy director Simon Milner has defended the decision, reasoning that such videos could expose human rights abuses, and that human rights activists that shared the video were condemning, rather than glorifying, decapitation.
“[There is] a place for people to share that kind of content in the right context,” Milner told MPs on Tuesday.
ISBA’s director of media and advertising, Bob Wootton, lambasted the social media platform – which allows anyone aged 13 or over to become a member – for continuing to “antagonise advertisers by directly refusing to give them safe passage on their channel.”
ISBA and the IPA have since given real-time advertising company Quantcast independent verification for its brand safety policies under the Brand Safety Initiative, meaning that Quantcast’s systems and policies prevent ads from appearing within unsuitable or damaging contexts.
“Almost the entirety of Facebook’s revenues comes from advertising in some form or other,” Wootton said. “That means the company’s valuation is critically dependent on advertising revenues and prospects.
“In this context, advertiser skittishness is something that should be avoided at all costs. The online social players should grasp this before it’s too late, and the newcomers should learn from their elders’ mistakes lest they too fall foul of it.”
