The social network has updated its guidelines in order to clarify what content it bans on its website. Facebook explained that the policy itself wouldn’t change, just more clarity and examples would be provided.

Updated guidelines contain clarifications on many aspects, including nudity, hate speech, self-harm, bullying, harassment, criminal activity, graphic content and other. For instance, hate speech is defined as content that directly attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, sex, gender and other factors (the list is long enough). The problem is that people may share material that contains someone else’s hate speech, but they do it in order to raise awareness or educate others. In this case, they should clearly indicate their purpose not to get banned.

As for nudity, Facebook apologizes for being too blunt and restricting content shared for legitimate purposes because of maintaining uniform policies across the world. The new guidelines explained that the service removes pictures of people who display genitals or focus in on fully exposed buttocks. Besides, they restrict some images of female breasts showing the nipple, except for pictures of breastfeeding women and photos of paintings, sculptures and other art.

Talking about dangerous organizations, Facebook bans the following: groups engaged in terrorist activity, organized criminal activity or those promoting hate against people.

Another issue that the company explained in the revised guidelines was attitude to public figures. Facebook clarified that it allows open and critical discussion of celebrities and other public figures, which does not include credible threats and hate speech directed at them.