XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Sunday 6 May 2012

Facebook Stops Users From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments -

Facebook Stops Users From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments - 




Today was just another Saturday morning in blog land when Robert Scoble, the well-known tech startup enthusiast, went to post a comment on a Facebook post written by Carnegie Mellon student (and TechCrunch commenter extraordinaire) Max Woolf about the nature of today’s tech blogging scene. Scoble’s comment itself was pretty par-for-the-course — generally agreeing with Woolf’s sentiments and adding in his own two cents.


But when Scoble went to click post, he received an odd error message:


“This comment seems irrelevant or inappropriate and can’t be posted. To avoid having comments blocked, please make sure they contribute to the post in a positive way.”


Now, Facebook makes no apologies for working to create a safe and clean environment on its corner of the web by shutting down abusive or harassing behavior, content such as pornography, or general spamming of the system. This particular method policing “inappropriate” comments may be new, but it would fall within the same realm.


But even so, this instance seems to be a very strange enactment of any kind of Facebook policy. Scoble posted his original comment in its entirety on his Google+ page, and it’s clear that it contains no profanity or even any obvious argumentative language.


Of course, what makes a comment “positive” or “negative” is a very subjective thing. Since Facebook is a global site, and what is acceptable in one culture is offensive in another, the company generally relies on a combination of software algorithms and notifications from other users to identify inappropriate behavior. This seems to show a glitch in that system.


Read more -
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/05/facebooks-positive-comment-policy-irrelevant-inappropriate-censorship/ 

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