Facebook shielding far-right activists, under-age accounts: Report
London, July 17 : Moderators at Facebook are protecting far-right activists, preventing their Pages from being deleted even after they violate the rules set up by the social media giant, the media reported.
The process called "shielded review" was uncovered by Channel 4 Dispatches - a documentary series that sent an undercover reporter to work as a content moderator in a Dublin-based Facebook contractor.
"In the documentary, a moderator tells the 'Dispatches' reporter that Britain First's pages were left up, even though they repeatedly broke Facebook's rules, because 'they have a lot of followers so they're generating a lot of revenue for Facebook'," the Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Similarly, popular pages, including those of activists like Tommy Robinson, are protected from Facebook rules. Robinson is currently in jail, serving a 13-month sentence for contempt of court.
Richard Allan, Facebook's Head of Public Policy, was quoted as saying in the documentary that the company's rules are based on revenue. "If the content is indeed violating it will go," Allan said.
Facebook, however, said it will remove Robinson's page if he repeatedly violated the site's community standards.Britain First's Facebook page was eventually banned in March 2018.
"It's clear that some of what is shown in the programme does not reflect Facebook's policies or values, and falls short of the high standards we expect.
"We take these mistakes in some of our training processes and enforcement incredibly seriously and are grateful to the journalists who brought them to our attention," Allan said.
The documentary also showed that Facebook moderators have turned blind eye to under-age accounts.
"Moderators are told they can only take action to close down the account of a child who clearly looks 10-years-old if the child actually admits in posts they are under-aged," The Telegraph reported, citing the documentary.
"We have to have an admission that the person is under-age. If not, we just pretend that we are blind and we don't know what underage looks like," a trainer told the undercover reporter.
Facebook is also facing the flak for launching Messenger Kids that encourages children under age 13 to join social media. British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in December warned the social media giant to stay away from his children.
Early this year, more than 100 child health experts have urged Facebook to withdraw the app.
Despite call for withdrawal by experts, Facebook has decided to expand the reach of Messenger Kids by introducing the video calling and messaging app designed for children under 13 to families in Canada and Peru.
Facebook said it will also introduce Spanish and French versions of the app.
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IPL mega auction to be held in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on November 24, 25: BCCI
New Delhi, Nov 5: The mega auction ahead of the Indian Premier League 2025 will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 24 and 25, the BCCI announced on Tuesday.
This is the second successive year the auction is being held overseas as Dubai hosted the previous one ahead of the IPL 2024.
The player registration officially closed on Monday and a total of 1,574 cricketers (1,165 Indian and 409 overseas) have been signed up for the auction, which will clash with the third and fourth day’s play of the first Test between India and Australia in Perth, which begins on November 22.
Each franchise will be able to form a maximum squad of 25 players (including respective retained players), and a total of 204 slots will be up for grabs from the auction.
The list includes 320 capped players, 1,224 uncapped players and 30 players from the Associate Nations.
Among capped players, 48 are from India. Moreover, 965 uncapped players of the country will also be part of the auction.
This year’s auction will feature some high-profile India stars such as Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Arshdeep Singh.
The 10 franchises will collectively have around Rs 641.5 crore to spend for the available 204 slots.
Out of those 204 slots, 70 are earmarked for overseas players.
As of now, 46 players have been retained by the 10 franchises with cumulative expenditure of Rs 558.5 crore.
Each franchise was allocated Rs 120 crore to build their squads but after the retention process, which was announced on October 31, Punjab Kings have the biggest purse -- Rs 110.5 crore.
The Punjab outfit retained just two uncapped players -- Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh for Rs 9.5 crore.
Rajasthan Royals, under Sanju Samson, have the smallest purse of Rs 41 crore after retaining six players.
The Kolkata Knight Riders have also retained six players but they have a remaining purse of Rs 51 crore.
