Facebook censorship under the microscope

Drone strikes and labia surgery. On the surface, they don't appear to have much in common. But when people tried to post stories about these topics on Facebook, they were blocked. "The content you're trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe," read one notification. What gives? That's what nonprofit OnlineCensorship.org is trying to understand. "We decided that in order to bring more transparency, we'd need to collect the data ourselves," said Jillian York, cofounder of OnlineCensorship.org.

The site, which launched in its current form in November, aims to be a platform for reporting censorship on social media. People can submit screenshots of posts that they feel have been "erroneously or unjustly" removed from six of the most popular social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+ and Flickr. As part of the submission -- which can be done anonymously -- users answer questions about their age and why they think the content was censored. Since November, there have been more than 200 submissions. Facebook, for example, prohibits nudity, hate speech or graphic images that glorify violence. It has also banned the private sale of guns and drugs. But a post about bullfighting? The company banned it -- then backpedaled. It also banned a post from a woman in Turkey critiquing Charlie Hebdo.