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 With 1.39 billion active users worldwide, Facebook’s social network is the closest thing we have to a universal communication platform. And people post — or try to post — just about everything you can imagine. 
 
 On Monday, the company clarified its community standards to give its users more guidance about what types of posts are not allowed on the service. 
 
 Facebook walks a delicate line when it tries to ban violent or offensive content without suppressing the free sharing of information that it says it wants to encourage. Its audience is vast, with a huge variance in age, cultural values and laws across the globe. Yet despite its published guidelines, the reasoning behind Facebook’s decisions to block or allow content are often opaque and inconsistent. 
 
 For example, the company flip-flopped repeatedly on whether to allow beheading videos on the service before recently deciding to ban them. In December, it blocked a page in Russia that was promoting an antigovernment protest, then allowed copycat pages to stay up. And in October, it created an exception to its requirement that people use their real names on the service when it allowed San Francisco’s drag queens to use their stage names while continuing to crack down on others using false names. 
 
 “We’re trying to strike the balance based on the way our community works,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, said in an interview. “The landscape is complicated.” 
 
 The company hopes that more specific explanation of its rules will take some of the mystery out of what it will and will not allow. 
 
 Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State have long been banned from the service. But supporting or praising groups involved in “violent, criminal or hateful behavior” is also banned, the updated rules say. 
 
 Threatening people with physical or financial harm, or bullying them by posting items intended to degrade or shame them, is also prohibited. So is anything that encourages suicide or eating disorders. 
 
 Facebook has always banned pornography and most other nudity, but it is now diving into the nuances. “We remove photographs of people displaying genitals or focusing in on fully exposed buttocks,” it says. It also restricts some images of female breasts if the nipple shows, “but we always allow photos of women actively engaged in breast-feeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring.” Photos of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures are also fine. 
 
 The company is for the first time explicitly banning content promoting sexual violence or exploitation, including so-called revenge porn, which it defines as intimate images “shared in revenge or without permission from the people in the images.” (Twitter has also updated its rules to forbid revenge porn.) 
 
 One thing that has not changed: Facebook has no plans to automatically scan for and remove potentially offensive content, Ms. Bickert said. 
 
 Facebook will still rely on users to report violations of the standards. Ms. Bickert said that the company had review teams working at all hours of the day around the globe, and that every report was examined by one of them before a decision was made. 
 
 The process can take time — typically 48 hours on matters of safety, she said. That may not be fast enough for some people in an era where graphic content can go viral in minutes. Twitter, which is a much more public forum, has come under fire from women’s advocates and antiterror groups for not responding quickly enough to reports of abusive or violent tweets. 
 
 But Facebook wants to take into account the full context of a post, Ms. Bickert said. For example, a victim of a violent attack might post images on Facebook as a way of raising public awareness. “Sometimes the best way to share information about atrocities in the world is Facebook,” she said. “We recognize that is a very challenging issue.” 
 
 Facebook’s rulings can also be appealed. “If a person’s account is suspended, those appeals are read by real people who can look into the specifics,” she said. 
 
 Ms. Bickert said that clarifying its rules helped not only Facebook users but also the people who reviewed possible violations to decide what was permissible. “We can only do this if we have objective rules,” she said. 
 
 Governments also ask Facebook to take down posts. In conjunction with the updated community standards, the company published on Monday its latest transparency report, which discloses country-by-country information on government requests for user data and the removal of content. 
 
 In the report, Facebook says that in the second half of 2014, it restricted 9,707 pieces of content for violating local laws, up 11 percent from the first half of the year. Of those, India requested the most takedowns, with 5,832, and Turkey was not far behind with 3,624. No content was restricted in the United States based on government requests. 
 
 The number of government requests for account data increased slightly, to 35,051, compared with 34,946 in the first half. The United States was at the top of the list, making 14,274 requests for information on 21,731 Facebook accounts, with the company agreeing to turn over information in 79 percent of the cases. 
 
 “As difficult questions arise about the limits of what people can share, we have a single guiding principle: We want to give the most voice to the most people,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, wrote in a post that accompanied the report. 
 
 “Some people say we should ignore government orders requiring us to restrict people’s voice, even if that means the whole service would be blocked in those countries. I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “I believe we have a responsibility to the millions of people in these countries who rely on Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family every day. If we ignored a lawful government order and then we were blocked, all of these people’s voices would be muted, and whatever content the government believed was illegal would be blocked anyway.” 
 
 “It’s tempting to think of free expression and having a voice as black and white — either you have it or you don’t,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “But giving people a voice, like most things in our society, is something that we must make incremental progress towards.” ||||| By Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management, and Chris Sonderby, Deputy General Counsel 
 
 Every day, people around the world use Facebook to connect with family and friends, share information and express themselves. The conversations that happen here mirror the diversity of the more than one billion people who use Facebook, with people discussing everything from pets to politics. Our goal is to give people a place to share and connect freely and openly, in a safe and secure environment. 
 
 We have a set of Community Standards that are designed to help people understand what is acceptable to share on Facebook. These standards are designed to create an environment where people feel motivated and empowered to treat each other with empathy and respect. 
 
 Today we are providing more detail and clarity on what is and is not allowed. For example, what exactly do we mean by nudity, or what do we mean by hate speech? While our policies and standards themselves are not changing, we have heard from people that it would be helpful to provide more clarity and examples, so we are doing so with today’s update. 
 
 There are also times when we may have to remove or restrict access to content because it violates a law in a particular country, even though it doesn’t violate our Community Standards. We report the number of government requests to restrict content for contravening local law in our Global Government Requests Report, which we are also releasing today. We challenge requests that appear to be unreasonable or overbroad. And if a country requests that we remove content because it is illegal in that country, we will not necessarily remove it from Facebook entirely, but may restrict access to it in the country where it is illegal. 
 
 Billions of pieces of content are shared on Facebook every day. We hope these two updates help provide more clarity about the standards we have, whether they are our own Community Standards or those imposed by different laws around the world. 
 
 More Detailed Community Standards 
 
 The updated Community Standards are broken into four sections: 
 
 Helping to keep you safe 
 
 Encouraging respectful behavior 
 
 Keeping your account and personal information secure 
 
 Protecting your intellectual property 
 
 In particular, we’ve provided more guidance on policies related to self-injury, dangerous organizations, bullying and harassment, criminal activity, sexual violence and exploitation, nudity, hate speech, and violence and graphic content. While some of this guidance is new, it is consistent with how we’ve applied our standards in the past. 
 
 It’s a challenge to maintain one set of standards that meets the needs of a diverse global community. 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 might be upsetting to someone else, but it may not violate our standards. 
 
 This is particularly challenging for issues such as hate speech. Hate speech has always been banned on Facebook, and in our new Community Standards, we explain our efforts to keep our community free from this kind of abusive language. We understand that many countries have concerns about hate speech in their communities, so we regularly talk to governments, community members, academics and other experts from around the globe to ensure that we are in the best position possible to recognize and remove such speech from our community. We know that our policies won’t perfectly address every piece of content, especially where we have limited context, but we evaluate reported content seriously and do our best to get it right. 
 
 If people believe Pages, profiles or individual pieces of content violate our Community Standards, they can report it to us by clicking the “Report” link at the top, right-hand corner. Our reviewers look to the person reporting the content for information about why they think the content violates our standards. People can also unfollow, block or hide content and people they don’t want to see, or reach out to people who post things that they don’t like or disagree with. 
 
 While the Community Standards outline Facebook’s expectations when it comes to what content is or is not acceptable in our community, countries have local laws that prohibit some forms of content. In some countries, for example, it is against the law to share content regarded as being blasphemous. While blasphemy is not a violation of the Community Standards, we will still evaluate the reported content and restrict it in that country if we conclude it violates local law. 
 
 Countries contact us to let us know when content may be in violation of local laws and we compile these requests into a public report called the Global Government Requests Report. 
 
 Global Government Requests Report 
 
 The Global Government Requests Report, which covers the second half of 2014, includes information about the government requests we received 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. 
 
 Overall, we continue to see an increase in government requests for data and content restrictions. The amount of content restricted for violating local law increased by 11% over the previous half, to 9,707 pieces of content restricted, up from 8,774. We saw a rise in content restriction requests from countries like Turkey and Russia, and declines in places like Pakistan. 
 
 The number of government requests for account data remained relatively flat, with a slight increase to 35,051 from 34,946. There was an increase in data requests from certain governments such as India, and decline in requests from countries such as the United States and Germany. 
 
 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. 
 
 Moving forward, we will continue to scrutinize each government request and push back when we find deficiencies. We will also continue to push governments around the world to reform their surveillance practices in a way that maintains the safety and security of their people while ensuring their rights and freedoms are protected. ||||| Leaked policies guiding moderators on what content to allow are likely to fuel debate about social media giant’s ethics 
 
 Facebook’s secret rules and guidelines for deciding what its 2 billion users can post on the site are revealed for the first time in a Guardian investigation that will fuel the global debate about the role and ethics of the social media giant. 
 
 The Guardian has seen more than 100 internal training manuals, spreadsheets and flowcharts that give unprecedented insight into the blueprints Facebook has used to moderate issues such as violence, hate speech, terrorism, pornography, racism and self-harm. 
 
 
 
 Facebook will let users livestream self-harm, leaked documents show Read more 
 
 There are even guidelines on match-fixing and cannibalism. 
 
 
 
 The Facebook Files give the first view of the codes and rules formulated by the site, which is under huge political pressure in Europe and the US. 
 
 They illustrate difficulties faced by executives scrabbling to react to new challenges such as “revenge porn�? – and the challenges for moderators, who say they are overwhelmed by the volume of work, which means they often have “just 10 seconds�? to make a decision. 
 
 “Facebook cannot keep control of its content,�? said one source. “It has grown too big, too quickly.�? 
 
 Many moderators are said to have concerns about the inconsistency and peculiar nature of some of the policies. Those on sexual content, for example, are said to be the most complex and confusing. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A slide on Facebook’s revenge porn policy. Photograph: Guardian 
 
 One document says Facebook reviews more than 6.5m reports a week relating to potentially fake accounts – known as FNRP (fake, not real person). 
 
 Using thousands of slides and pictures, Facebook sets out guidelines that may worry critics who say the service is now a publisher and must do more to remove hateful, hurtful and violent content. 
 
 Yet these blueprints may also alarm free speech advocates concerned about Facebook’s de facto role as the world’s largest censor. Both sides are likely to demand greater transparency. 
 
 The Guardian has seen documents supplied to Facebook moderators within the last year. The files tell them: 
 
 Facebook's internal manual on non-sexual child abuse content Read more 
 
 Remarks such as “Someone shoot Trump�? should be deleted, because as a head of state he is in a protected category. But it can be permissible to say: “To snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat�?, or “fuck off and die�? because they are not regarded as credible threats. 
 
 Videos of violent deaths, while marked as disturbing, do not always have to be deleted because they can help create awareness of issues such as mental illness. 
 
 Some photos of non-sexual physical abuse and bullying of children do not have to be deleted or “actioned�? unless there is a sadistic or celebratory element. 
 
 Photos of animal abuse can be shared, with only extremely upsetting imagery to be marked as “disturbing�?. 
 
 All “handmade�? art showing nudity and sexual activity is allowed but digitally made art showing sexual activity is not. 
 
 Videos of abortions are allowed, as long as there is no nudity. 
 
 Facebook will allow people to livestream attempts to self-harm because it “doesn’t want to censor or punish people in distress�?. 
 
 Anyone with more than 100,000 followers on a social media platform is designated as a public figure – which denies them the full protections given to private individuals. 
 
 Facebook's manual on credible threats of violence Read more 
 
 Other types of remarks that can be permitted by the documents include: “Little girl needs to keep to herself before daddy breaks her face,�? and “I hope someone kills you.�? The threats are regarded as either generic or not credible. 
 
 In one of the leaked documents, Facebook acknowledges “people use violent language to express frustration online�? and feel “safe to do so�? on the site. 
 
 It says: “They feel that the issue won’t come back to them and they feel indifferent towards the person they are making the threats about because of the lack of empathy created by communication via devices as opposed to face to face. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Facebook’s policy on threats of violence. A tick means something can stay on the site; a cross means it should be deleted. Photograph: Guardian 
 
 “We should say that violent language is most often not credible until specificity of language gives us a reasonable ground to accept that there is no longer simply an expression of emotion but a transition to a plot or design. From this perspective language such as ‘I’m going to kill you’ or ‘Fuck off and die’ is not credible and is a violent expression of dislike and frustration.�? 
 
 It adds: “People commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in generally facetious and unserious ways.�? 
 
 Facebook conceded that “not all disagreeable or disturbing content violates our community standards�?. 
 
 Monika Bickert, �?Facebook’s head of global policy management, said the service had almost 2 billion users and that it was difficult to reach a consensus on what to allow. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Facebook slide on threats of violence. The ticks mean these statements need not be deleted. Photograph: Guardian 
 
 “We have a really diverse global community and people are going to have very different ideas about what is OK to share. No matter where you draw the line there are always going to be some grey areas. For instance, the line between satire and humour and inappropriate content is sometimes very grey. It is very difficult to decide whether some things belong on the site or not,�? she said. 
 
 The Guardian's moderation policy The Guardian's moderation approach is bound by guidelines, which we have published here, and our moderators are all directly employed by the Guardian and work within our editorial team. The moderation team regularly receives training on issues such as race, gender or religious issues, and applies that training in service of those public guidelines. When making decisions, our moderators consider the community standards, wider context and purpose of discussions, as well as their relationship to the article on which they appear. We post-moderate most discussions, and rely on a mixture of targeted reading, community reports and tools to identify comments that go against our standards. We have an appeals process and anyone wanting to discuss specific moderation decisions can email moderation@theguardian.com. When requested, reasons for removal may be shared with those affected by the decision. All discussions on the Guardian site relate to articles we have published; this means we have specific responsibilities as a publisher, and also that we aim to take responsibility for the conversations we host. We make decisions about where to open and close comments based on topic, reader interest, resources and other factors. 
 
 “We feel responsible to our community to keep them safe and we feel very accountable. It’s absolutely our responsibility to keep on top of it. It’s a company commitment. We will continue to invest in proactively keeping the site safe, but we also want to empower people to report to us any content that breaches our standards.�? 
 
 She said some offensive comments may violate Facebook policies in some contexts, but not in others. 
 
 Facebook’s leaked policies on subjects including violent death, images of non-sexual physical child abuse and animal cruelty show how the site tries to navigate a minefield. 
 
 The files say: “Videos of violent deaths are disturbing but can help create awareness. For videos, we think minors need protection and adults need a choice. We mark as ‘disturbing’ videos of the violent deaths of humans.�? 
 
 Such footage should be “hidden from minors�? but not automatically deleted because it can “be valuable in creating awareness for self-harm afflictions and mental illness or war crimes and other important issues�?. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A slide on animal cruelty. Photograph: Guardian 
 
 Regarding non-sexual child abuse, Facebook says: “We do not action photos of child abuse. We mark as disturbing videos of child abuse. We remove imagery of child abuse if shared with sadism and celebration.�? 
 
 
 
 One slide explains Facebook does not automatically delete evidence of non-sexual child abuse to allow the material to be shared so “the child [can] be identified and rescued, but we add protections to shield the audience�?. This might be a warning on the video that the content is disturbing. 
 
 Facebook confirmed there are “some situations where we do allow images of non-sexual abuse of a child for the purpose of helping the child�?. 
 
 Facebook's rules on showing cruelty to animals Read more 
 
 Its policies on animal abuse are also explained, with one slide saying: “We allow photos and videos documenting animal abuse for awareness, but may add viewer protections to some content that is perceived as extremely disturbing by the audience. 
 
 “Generally, imagery of animal abuse can be shared on the site. Some extremely disturbing imagery may be marked as disturbing.�? 
 
 Photos of animal mutilation, including those showing torture, can be marked as disturbing rather than deleted. Moderators can also leave photos of abuse where a human kicks or beats an animal. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The documents include guidance on non-sexual child abuse. Composite: alamy 
 
 Facebook said: “We allow people to share images of animal abuse to raise awareness and condemn the abuse but remove content that celebrates cruelty against animals.�? 
 
 The files show Facebook has issued new guidelines on nudity after last year’s outcry when it removed an iconic Vietnam war photo because the girl in the picture was naked. 
 
 It now allows for “newsworthy exceptions�? under its “terror of war�? guidelines but draws the line at images of “child nudity in the context of the Holocaust�?. 
 
 Facebook told the Guardian it was using software to intercept some graphic content before it got on the site, but that “we want people to be able to discuss global and current events … so the context in which a violent image is shared sometimes matters�?. 
 
 Some critics in the US and Europe have demanded that the company be regulated in the same way as mainstream broadcasters and publishers. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Facebook slide on its Holocaust policy. Photograph: Guardian 
 
 But Bickert said Facebook was “a new kind of company. It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company. We build technology, and we feel responsible for how it’s used. We don’t write the news that people read on the platform.�? 
 
 A report by British MPs published on 1 May said “the biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking sufficient action to tackle illegal or dangerous content, to implement proper community standards or to keep their users safe�?. 
 
 Sarah T Roberts, an expert on content moderation, said: “It’s one thing when you’re a small online community with a group of people who share principles and values, but when you have a large percentage of the world’s population and say ‘share yourself’, you are going to be in quite a muddle. 
 
 “Then when you monetise that practice you are entering a disaster situation.�? 
 
 Facebook's internal guidance on showing graphic violence Read more 
 
 Facebook has consistently struggled to assess the news or “awareness�? value of violent imagery. While the company recently faced harsh criticism for failing to remove videos of Robert Godwin being killed in the US and of a father killing his child in Thailand, the platform has also played an important role in disseminating videos of police killings and other government abuses. 
 
 In 2016, Facebook removed a video showing the immediate aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile but subsequently reinstated the footage, saying the deletion was a “mistake�?.
– When it comes to rules about posts on Facebook, there's a fair bit of subtlety. Rather than electronically identifying offensive images, for instance, the company says it has actual human beings assess context, the New York Times reports. Today, the site is posting a more thorough explanation of its policies, which also address matters ranging from hate speech and nudity to issues of intellectual property. It encourages users to flag content that concerns them. Among its examples: Nudity: Genitals are a no-no. But while, for example, some images of breasts won't be tolerated, pictures of breastfeeding or mastectomy scars are allowed, as is artwork showing nudes, a spokeswoman tells the paper. Violence: The site has gone back and forth on beheading videos, finally settling on a ban, the Times reports. But images of violence may be allowed if they're aimed at sharing "information about atrocities in the world." Hate speech: Race-, gender-, and religion-based attacks won't be tolerated, the site says. But "people can use Facebook to challenge ideas, institutions, and practices," the site notes. "Such discussion can promote debate and greater understanding." International differences: The laws of different countries can change what's acceptable where. Facebook points to its Global Government Requests Report as a source of information on how official policies affect content and privacy. In the second half of 2014, the site notes, 9,707 pieces of content were restricted by governments, up 11% from the first half of the year. The site offers a clickable map showing different countries' records. Click for the full policy page.