Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit notify them that a penalty is being imposed — adding in details about the prior violations that led to the imposition of the penalty and including further explanation of the specific restrictions being imposed. Facebook has also begun informing users that further penalties will be applied in the future if they continue to violate its standards. Facebook is in the process of rolling out these new features, which the Auditors believe will be a helpful resource for users and will substantially increase transparency. After the horrific attack in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, Facebook took steps to understand what more the company could do to limit its services from being used to cause harm or spread hate. Two months after the terrorist attack, the company imposed restrictions on the use of Facebook Live such that people who commit any of its most severe policy violations such as terrorism, suicide, or sexual exploitation, will not be permitted to use the Live feature for set periods of time. While these restrictions will not alleviate the fears about future live streaming of horrific events, they are an important step. Taken together, the Auditors believe that these changes to Facebook’s appeals and penalties processes are important improvements that will improve transparency, and reduce confusion and some of the resulting frustration. In the Auditors’ view, however, there are additional improvements that Facebook should make. (iv) Penalties Recommendation. Transparency: As noted above, Facebook has partially implemented increased transparency in the form of additional user messaging identifying the reasons behind a penalty at the time it is imposed, including the specific underlying content violations. However, in some settings users still receive earlier versions of the penalty messaging, which do not provide the user with context regarding the underlying content violations that led to the penalty. The Auditors recommend that Facebook fully implement this additional user messaging across all products, interfaces, and types of violations. 4. Harassment The civil rights community has expressed great concern that Facebook is too often used as a tool to orchestrate targeted harassment campaigns against users and activists. The Auditors have asked Facebook to do more to protect its users and prevent large numbers of users from flooding individual activists with harassing messages and comments. In the June 2019 report, the Auditors flagged a number of ways to better address and protect against coordinated harassment, including: • Expressly prohibiting attempts to organize coordinated harassment campaigns; • Creating features allowing for the bulk reporting of content as violating or harassing; and • Improving detection and enforcement of coordinated harassment efforts. This section describes the steps Facebook has taken to more effectively prohibit and combat harassment on the platform, and identifies areas for further improvement. Due to time constraints caused by the Auditors being pulled 49