Days after Meta admitted that it’s been over-moderating its content, with mistakes impacting creators, the company announced an expansion of a new policy that will help to keep creators from being penalized after violating Meta’s Community Standards when they mess up for the first time. On Thursday, Meta said that the policy, which launched in August for Facebook creators, will now expand across all Facebook profiles and Facebook Pages worldwide, as well as to all creators on Instagram.
It will shortly expand to all users of Instagram, too, Meta says.
Introduced earlier this year, the revised policy helps to keep first-time violators out of “Facebook jail,” so to speak. Instead of receiving a strike for their initial warning, creators could opt to take a new, educational training course that could wipe the strike from their account. The change followed other efforts to reduce the impact of violations on creators, as Meta last year began to dole out more warnings before penalty actions were actually taken.
The company explained at the time that the policy was focused on “educating — not punishing” first-time rulebreakers.
In addition to removing the initial warning, creators are also able to participate in the program again if they make no further violations for one year.
Now, that revamped policy is rolling out to a broader audience.
It will work the same way, Meta says. That is, anyone will be able to take a course to learn about their violation while Meta will still remove any violating content. This course isn’t offered for more serious violations of its Community Standards, however, like those that involve “sexual exploitation, the sale of high-risk drugs or the glorification of dangerous organizations and individuals,” Meta notes.
After running the program with Facebook creators over the summer, Meta said that creators were more likely to say they wouldn’t violate policies again and 15% felt more confident in understanding its policies. The comapny didn’t share any data around how the system reduced future violations, though.
Meta is not alone in reducing the severity of its penalty system. YouTube last year introduced a similar program that allows creators to remove their warnings as well.
