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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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
