Facebook Violence Warning For Beheading Video Denounced, FB Reverses Policy

The policy for a Facebook violence warning has been reversed in the case of a Facebook beheading video depicting a woman being decapitated.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, a Facebook privacy policy change puts user’s personal information at risk.

In response to several violent videos being posted on Facebook, the social media giant began introducing a warning label that read: “Warning! This video contains extremely graphic content and may be upsetting.”

This is how the justification for the original violence warning was explained:

“Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they’re connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events. People are sharing this video on Facebook to condemn it. If the video were being celebrated, or the actions in it encouraged, our approach would be different.”

This explanation was in reference to a specific video depicting a half naked woman in Mexico being beheaded. Even British Prime Minister David Cameron went on record to criticize the American company’s policies.

So less than a day later after defending themselves with a violence warning, the video was abruptly taken down:

“Based on these enhanced standards [whether content is being shared responsibly], we have re-examined recent reports of graphic content and have concluded that this content improperly and irresponsibly glorifies violence. For this reason, we have removed it.”

The major issue with the Facebook violence warning is that teenagers as young as age 13 are still able to share content and watch it without any restriction. It’s possible the Facebook policies on this issue may evolve over time to allow such violent content, yet at the same time, put in system restrictions to prevent anyone within a certain age range from accessing the content.

Do you think the Facebook violence warning was a good idea for freedom in social media? Or do you think violent content should be permanently kept outside of Facebook?