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Facebook publishes new guidelines on monetising content

Facebook publishes new guidelines on monetising content

Facebook has published new guidelines pointing out the categories of content for which it may block monetisation on its service.

The social network says it will use "automated and manual enforcement methods, promising creators and publishers that "we'll do our best to consider the context and purpose, including content that is educational or intended to be comedic".

(Watch for that sentence resurfacing regularly when video uploaders disagree with Facebook's judgement on whether their content falls foul of the regulations.)

Some of the new guidelines are unsurprising: Facebook is likely to block monetisation of videos with hate speech, nudity, and promotion of drugs and alcohol. But any creator working on gaming videos will be concerned about some of the guidelines around violent content.

Here's the relevant part of Facebook's guidelines, defining what it sees as violent content:

"Content that is depicting threats or acts of violence against people or animals, where this is the focal point and is not presented with additional context. Examples includes content featuring fights, gore, beatings of either animals or people, or excessively graphic violence in the course of video gameplay." (our emphasis added)

What this means for, say, gamers uploading or streaming video of franchises like Grand Theft Auto remains to be seen. That kind of game may also be problematic under another of Facebook's guidelines: the one relating to "content that depicts, constitutes, facilitates, or promotes the sale or use of illegal or illicit products, services or activities. Examples include content that features coordinated criminal activity, drug use, or vandalism".

While most gamers will be able to avoid flouting the bar on "misappropriation of children's characters" – no Let's Plays implying the Angry Birds are "involved in vile or shocking acts, or involved in behavior such as smoking or drinking" please – they'll be keen to understand how tightly Facebook applies its new guidelines to games aimed at an older audience.


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Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)