Mumbai: The social media era greets people with a murky spectrum of ideologies, information sharing, promotions, and more, while all along its capacity for misuse is often underestimated.
Following this train of thought, at Goafest 2024, Paras Sharma, Meta's Director of Global Partnerships, highlighted efforts by Meta to enhance safety and trust for both creators and users. He outlined different strategies aimed at creating a more secure online space for everyone.
He highlighted Meta’s primary goal of establishing a trusted, safe, and secure environment for users and emphasised the investments made for the same.
“We've invested significantly in community guidelines, allocating close to 20 billion dollars. Globally, we have a team of 40,000 individuals, including 15,000 content reviewers, who assess and label content to guide our systems at the back end.”
“On the front end, we offer over 40 safety tools, continually evolving to meet user needs,” he added.
User control and other features
He urged that users have control over the content they see, despite the backend operations. He also talked about the night mode that prompts users to take breaks if they're excessively using the platform.
"Particularly for audience segments like teens, we've introduced parental supervision tools, allowing parents to monitor their children's viewing habits and the accounts they follow,” he added.
Creator protection
From a creative point of view, he emphasised the importance, even among industry leaders, of streamlining the creation process while also safeguarding the creators themselves.
Addressing this, he explained that within the Meta app, there are various features aimed at protecting creators. For instance, users can hide comments or filter out trolling comments, which can be a significant issue for creators.
There's also a feature called 'hidden words' that automatically removes comments containing certain words known for their negative impact, he stated.
"We continuously update these features as trolls become smarter. Additionally, there's a 'take a break' feature for creators feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of constant content creation,” Sharma highlighted.
“They can opt to temporarily pause content creation; these features are regularly refined to ensure creators feel supported and safe,” he said.
For brands and advertisers
Regarding advertisers and brands, Sharma emphasised the opportunity to choose where their content appears and what type of content aligns with their brand image.
Expanding on this, he said, “From our advertising standards perspective, we have strict guidelines. We prohibit ads that make promises related to transformation, such as health, weight loss, fitness, or economic opportunities. These ads are blocked, consistent with our community standards guidelines. This approach ensures protection for both advertisers and users.”
“And with all these strategies, he said, “It's estimated that 3.2 million people use our family apps every day, and we're committed to expanding on that.”
Sharma emphasised the impact of Meta and its family apps, highlighting how they've significantly destroyed the large entry barriers for how people used to create, distribute, market, and put effort into each.
He cited examples of creator journeys like Neel Ranaut, who expresses himself through fashion by using leaves and vegetables and now endorses fashion brands, and Dipendra Singh, who gained attention for his singing talent and now works with industries for promotion.
Sharma emphasised that social media serves as a strong platform whose economic value needs to be realised.
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