Facebook Fading?

From The Conversation:

This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites. Young people are turning away in droves and adopting other social networks instead, while the worst people of all, their parents, continue to use the service.  

As part of a European Union-funded study on social media, we are running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in eight countries. What we’ve learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.  

Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

Nudity in Art on Facebook: The Problem

Detail of "Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe)," 1966 by Gerhard Richter.

If you are interested in an insightful consideration of the problem of posting art that contains nudity on Facebook or if your are interested in Internet censorship, read this article from Blouin ArtInfo by Terri Ciccone. It is an interesting read.

To get at the root of the problem, it helps to know how Facebook goes about identifying and removing obscene content in the first place. When an image depicting “sexually explicit” content gets reported by a Facebook user, it heads to the “abusive content” department, one of four teams that work around the world and around the clock to monitor time-sensitive material (the process is detailed by a chart on the website NakedSecurity.) 

The team then measures the photo against Facebook’s community standards, which define what type of content is prohibited, including content containing violence and threats, self harm, bullying and harassment, and “graphic content,” which among other things includes nudity and pornography.  

If the image is found to have violated a standard, the team will issue a warning. A second offense causes the account to be disabled. There is no algorithm or auto-delete that searches for offensive content, save for a software called PhotoDNA, which polices the platform for child pornography. 

We reached out to Facebook for a clarification on what is acceptable and what is not, given the recent scuffles over artworks. In an email, Frederic Wolens, a representative of Facebook’s Policy Communications, explained....

Alyson B. Stanfield has an art business blog that is great. As I am averse to Facebook, readers of this blog might value four of her posts:

• How to create a Fan Page and the value of fan pages..
• How to set up a custom "landing" page.
• Three critical concerns for artist Facebook pages.
• How to organize photos of your art on Facebook.