The Impact of Meta's Updated Platform Penalties
Alison Anderson
26 Feb 2023
eta’s recent decision to shift its approach to platform penalties offers a unique opportunity for the platform to become more transparent and provide users with better explanations of content that has been removed. With the oversight board’s criticism of Meta’s lack of transparency in mind, this update could help to create a better understanding between the platform and its users.
The new system places emphasis on helping people understand why their content has been removed instead of simply restricting their abilities without an explanation. To begin, warnings and explanations will be given to those violating Meta’s policies, and account restrictions will be applied more severely. The goal here is to prevent further rulebreaking by helping people understand why their content was taken down.
This system could benefit Meta in the long-term by eliminating the assumption that the platform is enforcing its rules in an unbalanced or unfair way. Meta believes that nearly 80% of users with a low number of policy violations will not repeat their mistakes if they are better informed about why their content was taken down.
Providing better explanations of why content was removed will allow users to appeal if they think they were misinterpreted. This could help lessen the blow of any unjust suspensions and potentially help limit any further rulebreaking.
Meta’s update to their enforcement rules is an encouraging step towards creating a more balanced relationship between the platform and its users. By focusing on explanations rather than suspensions, Meta can help reduce unjust penalties while hopefully providing a better understanding of why the platform’s rules must be followed.