Oversight Board tells Meta to crack down on Facebook address doxxing
In an opinion issued on Tuesday, the Oversight Board called on Facebook and Instagram to place tighter restrictions on sharing the addresses of private homes, intended as a protection against doxxing and targeted harassment.
The opinion comes in response to a request issued by Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) in April 2021. Currently, Facebook prohibits the sharing of private information broadly but makes a general exception for information that is “publicly available” — defined as having been published in five separate news outlets.
The board recommends crafting a tighter policy specifically for information on private residences. It urges removing the exception for publicly available information and creating a specific enforcement channel to prioritize reports of doxxing, including from targets who are not users of Facebook or Instagram.
The board emphasized that the platforms should still allow for protests at publicly owned official residences and not take down posts in which a user is sharing their own address. Still, the overall effect is to tighten moderation on posts containing addresses or street-side imagery of homes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/oversight-board-tells-meta-to-crack-down-on-facebook-address-doxxing/ar-AATChzc
