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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Wolf once believed to be dead shows up near Crater Lake ... One of Oregon's two health insurance co-ops says it will shut down ... Rogue Valley gubernatorial candidate blasts Gov. Brown on climate change ... Wolf once believed to be dead shows up near Crater Lake ... One of Oregon's two health insurance co-ops says it will shut down ... Rogue Valley gubernatorial candidate blasts Gov. Brown on climate change ... Facebook's 'community standards' look at best, worst aspects of connecting to each other Facebook this week announced new standards for what's acceptable on its platform. Bullying and sexual content are out. But by the time the site figures it out, the damage may already be done. Comment By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News MailTribune.com By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News Posted Mar. 17, 2015 at 10:05 AM By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News Posted Mar. 17, 2015 at 10:05 AM » Social News Facebook has announced new community standards for what's acceptable on its platform. Bullying and sexual content are out, for example, along with selling drugs and guns or promoting self-harm. Violent groups like Islamic State won't find a welcoming home there, either, nor will organized crime. But by the time Facebook figures it out, some damage may already be done. I know that's a somewhat unfair statement, given that it has nearly 1.4 billion active users worldwide and is published in I don't know how many languages. Monitoring all of that would be nearly impossible, and it makes perfect sense to me that Facebook doesn't seek out offensive or harmful material. Who wants Facebook creeping through your posts looking for something to ban, anyway? But I can definitely see that the time lag between figuring out how to report something and the time it might be pulled from the site could be problematic. In an interview with Vindu Goel of The New York Times , Monika Bickert, the social network's global policy manager, explained the time lag. She said it takes as long as 48 hours to deal with matters of safety. It could take longer to remove other types of posts. That time frame allows the people tasked with monitoring content and making decisions some time to view the material in context, she said. I'm all for context and I'm not a fan of censorship in general. But I certainly hope that the categories of complaints about material are very clear and prioritized so that individuals know how to report a specific concern and the more serious ones garner the most immediate attention. I also hope that it will now be much easier to figure out how to report something. I bookmarked the new community standards release on my browser this week because it contains an actual way to start the reporting process. If you have ever tried to contact Facebook about anything at all, you know it's nearly impossible to figure out how to do it. It's not like you can just look up a phone number and give the staff a call or even zoom to a single "contact us" page without noodling around for a while to find it. A couple of years ago, my daughter pointed out a vicious post about someone else on her news feed. It featured a really mean photo of a student from her school who clearly had no idea she was being photographed and who was not doing anything wrong but nonetheless clearly had an enemy intent on harming her. The caption was at best brutally unkind and really seemed to qualify as defamatory. It's the only time I've ever tried to get content removed from the gargantuan social networking site and I know several people pointed it out to a school counselor. I suspect the school had more of a role in that situation than Facebook did, working directly with the poster's family, although I don't know for sure. Either way, it was up for several days — and in teen time, when all the students at your school are seeing a post that is viciously demeaning, that's a very, very long time. Goel reported that Facebook "flip-flopped repeatedly on whether to allow beheading videos on the service" before banning them. I'm very surprised that was even a question, particularly since terrorist organizations are not supposed to find a welcome there. To do otherwise would amount to deciding if one had a good beheading organization or a bad one, which is ludicrous. I believe censorship should be infrequent and reserved for egregious issues. But I am very happy that Facebook has clarified what it considers meets that standard. The list and explanation are worth reading — and Facebook certainly has a right to decide how its tools and technology may not be used. By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News MailTribune.com By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News Posted Mar. 17, 2015 at 10:05 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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