HAVE you ever seen something on Facebook that you thought shouldn’t be there?

Maybe it was an inappropriate photo or a really nasty comment about someone, so you decide to report it to Facebook.

You jump through all the hoops ticking the boxes that explain why you are reporting the content and once it’s all done you are met with this message: “Thanks for your report. Based on the information provided, we’re not able to confirm that the content you’ve reported violates your rights.

“Please note that Facebook isn’t in a position to adjudicate disputes between third parties. You may wish to reach out to the party responsible for posting the content to resolve your issue with them directly (ex. send a message through messenger or leave a comment on the reported content).”

This is Facebook’s most common response to users who report content on the social media site.

If you try to take your complaint further you are met with another generic response telling you to contact the person responsible for the content yourself.

“Thanks for your response. For the reasons we previously stated, we’re not in a position to act on your report,” it reads. “If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to reach out to the party responsible for posting the content to resolve your issue with them directly.”

If you have been noticing that this message has been popping up more and the content you report never seems to get taken down you are not alone.

Brendon McAlpine works for Internet Removals, an organisation that helps people get sensitive material off the internet, and says he is finding it increasingly difficult to remove content from Facebook.

“Facebook has always been the hardest platform to get content off and it is just continuing to get harder and harder as they keep changing all their internal processes,” Mr McAlpine told news.com.au. “There are cases where someone has posted extremely defamatory or degrading content about another person and we just can’t get it down.”

Mr McAlpine said people would usually report content themselves first, and by the time they asked for help it was really affecting their wellbeing and day-to-day life.

Facebook’s community standards state they will remove content if it is found to constitute a credible threat to public or personal safety, promote or publicise crime, promote the sexual exploitation of adults and children or constitutes hate speech on protected characteristics.

The social media organisation’s bullying policy also states that content will be removed if it “purposefully targets private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them.”

But Mr McAlpine said despite Facebook’s policy it was still nearly impossible to get bullying content removed.

“It is a grey area in the sense that if it is content that involves racism or violence things like that then moderators are on it and it will be taken down,” he said.

“But if it is something that might only be about one individual and not necessarily fall into those categories but it is still incredibly detrimental it doesn’t get taken down.”

According to Mr McAlpine, Facebook is denying Australians their rights to be protected from defamation by not removing this content.

“People can made up pretty much whatever they want about another person and post it on Facebook and even though it should be removed it just isn’t,” he said. “Under Australian law you just can’t do that.

“At some stage Facebook needs to realise that it needs to start moderating per to each countries different laws and values.”

‘ARE YOU A CHUBBY CHASER?’

Internet Removals provided news.com.au with some examples of the degrading content that the team have been unable to get Facebook to remove.

These examples were posted to pages and groups on the platform and were still not taken down after reportedly being flagged with Facebook.

Facebook’s community standards state they will remove content if it is found to constitute a credible threat to public or personal safety, promote or publicise crime, promote the sexual exploitation of adults and children or constitutes hate speech on protected characteristics.

The social media organisation’s bullying policy also states that content will be removed if it “purposefully targets private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them.”

But Mr McAlpine said despite Facebook’s policy it was still nearly impossible to get bullying content removed.

“It is a grey area in the sense that if it is content that involves racism or violence things like that then moderators are on it and it will be taken down,” he said.

“But if it is something that might only be about one individual and not necessarily fall into those categories but it is still incredibly detrimental it doesn’t get taken down.”

According to Mr McAlpine, Facebook is denying Australians their rights to be protected from defamation by not removing this content.

“People can made up pretty much whatever they want about another person and post it on Facebook and even though it should be removed it just isn’t,” he said. “Under Australian law you just can’t do that.

“At some stage Facebook needs to realise that it needs to start moderating per to each countries different laws and values.”

Example 1:

Chubby (name) — Are you a chubby chaser? Here we have the plump (name). You think her ass is fat? You should see the size of her mouth. This sea cow … AKA “The Manatee” enjoys long walks along the beach, hanging out at the local underwater McDonald’s and running her mouth off around town with the rest of her manatee slug bag posse. Telling people you’re big boned is like telling a 21 year old that the Tooth Fairy is actually real. I can definitely see the outlines of a moustache.

Example 2:

(Name) didn’t want to interview me because my LinkedIn profile was broken. She insisted that my resume, staffing summary, and 30 recommendations I provided in a PDF wasn’t good enough. Please don’t waste your time working for people who have a racial bias. She doesn’t do business with POC or Black women. (Name) is just another person using the word “Diversity” to her advantage without doing anything at!

Example 3:

She’s probably in here, reading all the “slander” against her. She had a go at my friend for simply commenting on your posts about her. What a dodgy c**t. Good thing is everyone knows she is dodgy already. We rented a house with them in (city) on the lease it said fences were all good to house a dog etc we had two dogs and our staffies got out.

She is not welcome at the tribunal. All of her hearings are over the phone and (name) her employee handles them. How has the real estate institute not investigated her already?

You only need to listen to her answering machine message to know she is condescending & unprofessional. No dignity or class what so ever.

Mr McAlpine said in cases like these people were just told to “block” the user so they can’t see the content, even though it would remain published for everyone else to see.

“It’s gotten to the point where it just seems impossible to get anything down, you are just slapped with that same generic message,” he said. “What we are seeing now is people that are having their everyday lives affected by content that’s on Facebook. And the company just isn’t doing enough to protect these people.”