Facebook to remove ads from pages with violent content

In a statement the company said that from Monday it would bring in a new review process to determine which pages and groups should feature ads alongside their content and which should be ad-restricted:

“by the end of the week, we will remove ads from all pages and groups that fall into this new, more expansive restricted list.

“For example, we will now seek to restrict ads from appearing next to pages and groups that contain any violent, graphic or sexual content (content that does not violate our community standards).”

The review will take place manually at first, but Facebook aims to build an automated system to prevent or remove ads appearing next to controversial content.

The move came after both BSkyB and Marks and Spencers announced that they were going to stop advertising on Facebook.

A spokesperson for BSkyB told Channel 4 News “we have suspended our advertising on Facebook after one of our adverts was found adjacent to offensive material. Such content is clearly unacceptable to Sky and our customers … We understand that Facebook has developed some proposals which we look forward to discussing with them.”

Commercial pressures

Campaigners recently successfully targeted advertisers to pressurise Facebook to remove posts and images that glorify rape.

A week-long campaign that saw 5,000 emails sent to advertisers and 60,000 posts on Twitter, led to a pledge from the company that it would train its team of reviewers and refer them to guidance from women’s groups when monitoring contentious hate speech.

That change of heart was welcomed by campaign organisers Women, Action and the Media (WAM), which said Facebook had “admirably done more than most other companies to address this topic in regards to content policy.”