Facebook’s Profanity Filter – Medium Vs Strong

The internet is a wild west of language. Many brands – especially those with a family-friendly audience – may find facebook profanity filter medium vs strong necessary to moderate their content to prevent obscene language from appearing on their page. And while the Internet has a tendency to blur the lines of what is considered profanity, it’s not an excuse for brands to allow discriminatory or bullying language on their pages.

Can I turn off profanity filter?

Facebook allows Page admins to select the level of profanity filtering – off, weak, medium, or strong – which determines what kinds of words will be blocked from posts and comments on their Pages. The filtering uses a “profanity list” of the most commonly reported words and phrases marked as offensive by the community, and it’s updated regularly.

Corporal Head testified that she set the State Police’s profanity filter to strong because the agency aimed for a family-friendly presence and the public page is the primary way to communicate with the public. She also explained that she didn’t feel comfortable allowing the page to be used as a forum for discussion of topics such as child abuse, domestic violence, or terrorism because children use it regularly and are present at public events.

Regardless of whether the Court’s decision in this case is upheld, the First Amendment protects the State Police’s ability to determine its own baseline community standards for its public page. In fact, based on this ruling and its own guidelines, the State Police is likely to need to turn the profanity filter off altogether, or at least consider selecting a weak or medium setting, supplemented with a narrowly tailored list of specific obscenities that it wants to block.