Meta: Explained: ‘Facebook jail’ reforms and how Meta will improve its penalty system – Times of India

The Oversight Board is an independent body which includes experts, academics, civic leaders and lawyers who analyse appeals and decisions made by Meta. The Board has raised concerns about Facebook’s penalty system for a long time now and has called it “disproportionate and opaque.” The social media platform has also been advised to be more transparent regarding its decisions with users. The Oversight Board even pushed the company to allow users to explain the context of their violating posts while appealing for a decision made by Meta. Facebook users refer to the company’s system for determining policy violations as “Facebook jail”. Meta has now announced that it is reforming the penalty system based on Oversight Board’s recommendations.
How Facebook will reform its penalty system
As per Meta, the reformed system will focus less on penalising end users by restricting their ability to post. Instead, the social media platform will concentrate more on explaining the reason behind removing content. Facebook has also claimed that its policies will not only be fairer but will also be more effective in moderating content on the platform.
The company has also confirmed that the new system won’t enforce strict penalties like the 30-day timeouts from posting (mostly until the seventh violation).
In a newsroom announcement related to the changes, Monika Bickert, Meta’s VP of Content Policy said, “We’re making this change in part because we know we don’t always get it right. So rather than potentially over-penalizing people with a lower number of strikes from low-severity violations and limiting their ability to express themselves, this new approach will lead to faster and more impactful actions for those that continuously violate our policies.”
However, the company has mentioned that its decision-making process for removing content will remain intact. To increase its transparency around its decisions, the company will explain its policies to users when a post violates the social media platform’s policies.
Meta said that users often found themselves in the “Facebook jail,” without even understanding where they went wrong. Some users also don’t know when they have been penalised and suddenly find out that they are unable to post.

How ‘Facebook jail’ sentences affected users
Meta has acknowledged that the previous system caused some real harm. Users who were banned from posting on Facebook not only lost their ability to express themselves and connect with their local communities but were also unable to run their businesses on the platform while being in the “Facebook jail.”
The company also accepted that these “timeouts” were lengthy as well. In case of a violation, the previous system blocked users from posting for 30 days. The period seemed even more frustrating for users when the mistake was a minor one or if the platform didn’t consider the context.
However, the system also didn’t address the larger issue of cyber criminals. Facebook— allowed them to stay on the platform for a longer time as they bypassed Meta from discovering larger violation trends, the company notes.
How Meta is planning to increase transparency
To address these issues, Meta is increasing transparency related to the violations. However, the company will continue penalising repeat violations. This way, the system will be more effective in managing issues with cyber criminals.
Meta has also analysed its penalty system and found that nearly 80% of users with a low number of strikes usually didn’t violate its policies in the next 60 days. This proved most users’ attitudes towards these warnings and explanations. Meanwhile, Facebook forced more severe penalties when a user committed the seventh violation, which gave “well-intentioned people the guidance they need while still removing bad actors.”

However, the company assured that serious violations will not be allowed on the platform. Meta said posts that include “terrorism, child exploitation, human trafficking, suicide promotion, sexual exploitation, the sale of non-medical drugs or the promotion of dangerous individuals and organizations,” will continue to see immediate consequences, including account removals at times.
In some cases, Facebook may also restrict users from posting in Facebook Groups at lower thresholds than the seventh violation. The company did not elaborate on this part.