New Facebook features to protect users from bullying, harassment
San Francisco, Oct 2 : Embroiled in a massive data breach and facing $1.63 billion in fine from the European Union (EU) privacy watchdog, Facebook on Tuesday introduced a new feature for its 2.3 billion users to hide or delete multiple comments at once from the options menu of their post.
This feature is rolling out on desktop and Android and will be available on iOS in the coming months.
"We are also testing ways to more easily search for and block offensive words from appearing in comments," said Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety at Facebook.
"If you see a friend or family member being bullied or harassed, now you can report someone on their behalf via the menu above the post that you are concerned about."
Facebook community operations team will review the post, keep the report anonymous, and determine whether it violates its community standards.
People will also be able to appeal decisions on cases involving bullying and harassment.
Earlier this year, Facebook announced a process that allows people to request another review of their photo, video or post that has been taken down for violating community standards for nudity and sexual activity, hate speech or graphic violence.
"We have now extended these reviews to bullying and harassment violations - this means that if your content has been taken down for bullying or harassment, you will have the opportunity to request another review," said Facebook.
If Facebook does not take it down after its initial review, users can also ask for a second review if they think the social media giant made a mistake.
"In the coming weeks, we will further expand our policies to better protect public figures against harassment regardless of age," said Davis.
The announcement comes at a time when Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which is Facebook's lead privacy regulator in Europe, has asked Facebook to submit more details in the incident where data of over 50 million users were hacked via "Access Tokens" or digital keys.
The privacy watchdog could fine Facebook as much as $1.63 billion for the data breach.
In the biggest-ever security breach after Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook last week admitted that hackers broke into nearly 50 million users' accounts by stealing their "access tokens" or digital keys.
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Delegation requests for Karnataka HC Bench in coastal districts, hands petition to Chief Justice
Udupi: A delegation of the High Court Bench Struggle Committee met and submitted a petition to the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru at the Circuit House urging the opening of a High Court Bench in the coastal belt as well as a Mobile High Court Bench in Mangaluru.
MLC and convener of the Committee Ivan D’Souza, who spoke to the Chief Justice on the occasion, explained that the people of the coastal belt find it difficult to travel to Bengaluru to fight a petition in the High Court. The problem only aggravated during monsoon. D’Souza added that there was a delay in clearing the cases of Udupi, Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts, which was causing further inconvenience to the people.
The MLC, who pointed out that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had also shown his preference for establishing a High Court Bench in the coastal region, requested for an approval to establish a Mobile High Court Bench first.
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Responding to this request, Chief Justice Bakhru assured to take action on the request as soon as possible.
The delegation included Mangalore Bar Association President Raghavendra HV, Dakshina Kannada Principal Government Pleader MP Noronha, General Secretary Sridhar H, Udupi Bar Association President Reynold Praveen Kumar, General Secretary Chandrashekhar Shetty, Vice-president Devadas V Shettigar and Brahmavar Bar Association President Kadoor Praveen Shetty.
