Facebook's handling of Alex Jones is a microcosm of its content policy problem

In this instance, a group of executives at Facebook went hands-on in determining if an Instagram post by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones violated the platform’s community standards.

To make that determination, 20 Facebook and Instagram executives hashed it out over the Jones post, which depicted a mural known as “False Profits” by the artist Mear One. Facebook began debating the post after it was flagged by Business Insider for kicking up anti-Semitic comments on Wednesday.

Later in the conversation, some of the U.K.-based Instagram and Facebook executives on the email provided more context for their U.S.-based peers.

Because of that, the image and its context are likely better known in the U.K., a fact that came up in Facebook’s discussion over how to handle the Jones post.

Whether you agree with Facebook’s content moderation decisions or not, it’s impossible to argue that they are consistently enforced. In the latest example, the company argued over a single depiction of a controversial image even as the same image is literally for sale by the artist elsewhere on both Instagram and Facebook.

And until Facebook develops a more uniform interpretation of its own community standards one the company enforces from the bottom up rather than the top down it’s going to keep taking heat on all sides.

Original article