Facebook is a social networking website that connects people all over the world. It was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and is used by more than 2.9 billion users where they create their profiles, post, share, uploads their photographs, indulges in conversations, comment, and much more. It has strict guidelines which should be followed by every user to keep it a safe space for all.
Facebook can take up to 24-48 hours to review a photo. However, the amount of time it takes to review each photo varies depending upon various factors like the workload of the Facebook review team, the contents of the photo, and whether the photo has been reported or not.
Over time, Facebook has improved its criteria and review management, which helps create a joyous and peaceful platform. It is likely that if the review takes too long your account might be at risk of being permanently closed.
On Which Basis Is Your Photo Taken For Review?
The main issue faced by networking platforms like Facebook is that of fake accounts or some people impersonating others. Also, since these platforms are used by billions of users all over the world, there is always room for hate speech or content igniting fights due to various controversial topics.
It is due to these reasons that Facebook has community standards which are basically guidelines to clarify to the users what is and is not allowed on the platform. Therefore, reviewing photos is Facebook’s way to inspect that they comply with community standards in order to maintain a healthy, safe, and friendly environment.
Community Standards
Possible reasons why your photo might be under review are:
- Somebody reported it.
- Hate speech.
- Sexual content.
- Violent and graphic content.
- Fake photo.
- Photo impersonating others.
- Promotion of self-harm
- Misinformation and fraud.
- Bullying and harassment.
- Spam.
- Promoting crime.
Watch the above video and be mindful of what you post on Facebook otherwise either you won’t be able to post for some hours or your account may be at risk of being permanently closed. Also, posting something offensive or violating can not only hurt someone’s sentiments but also cost you your reputation.
What Goes Behind The Reviewing Process?
Initially, Facebook had a reviewing team to go through all the content. However, with time, Facebook has now upgraded to an AI system along with manual reviewers for increased accuracy and rapid response.
| Artificial interview review | If the content of the photo is clearly violating community standards, an Artificial intelligence system immediately takes it down without any manual overview. |
| Manual review | Manual review is needed when: 1) The photo consists of sensitive topics like religion. 2) The photo consists of content that is going viral. 3) It is likely to violate the community rules or cause online outrage. |
Artificial Intelligence System
With the increased use of technology and for the sake of prompt services, Facebook now has a proactive Artificial intelligence system that shows efficiency and accuracy.
This system detects violations over a wide range and helps to detect harmful content. It is also designed to prioritize the content that has a high likelihood of violation.
The precision of this Artificial Intelligence system makes it easy for the content reviewers to focus more on those photos where more expertise is needed to understand its contents.
Manual Review
No matter how capable the Artificial intelligence system might be, it still can’t understand some of the sentiments and meanings behind certain photos hence manual review is equally important.
Moreover, determining whether a photo related to any sensitive topic would be appropriate or not can only be done by manual review. It is mainly a manual review that takes a little longer and extends the duration of the process to a few days.
What Is Meant By Pending Review?
When you see the status “pending review”, it indicates that your content has been submitted to be reviewed to ensure that it complies with Facebook’s community standards.
During this time, your post won’t be visible to other users. As soon as your content is compliant with Facebook’s community rules, it’ll be posted, and your followers will be able to view it as well. Alternatively, if your content does violate the community standards then it’ll be removed, and you’ll receive a notification with an explanation for its removal.
This process is usually completed within several hours or days.
Why Does It Take Facebook A While To Review Photos?
You might be wondering why it takes all this time for Facebook to review photos. I mean I used to wonder that too. I can review a picture in seconds, maybe seconds is an exaggeration but minutes for sure.
There might be several reasons why it might take Facebook a while to review photos, such as:
- Facebook has more than 2 billion users and most users share a great number of photos each day which creates a lot of rush and cause delays in reviewing.
- Facebook’s community standards also contribute to delays in the reviewing process since the Artificial Intelligence-driven bots have to rule out all the possibilities that might be violating any of the community guidelines. Sometimes, these artificial intelligence-driven bots might not be able to complete the task on their own. In such cases, the content is then referred to the manual reviewers who further take more time to examine the complexity of the photo.
- Moreover, according to recent reports from Facebook’s transparency center, there has been a surge in nudity and hate content which slows down the overall process of reviewing other content.
- If the photo to be reviewed is different from your profile photo, then it might get reviewed and investigated; a process that takes a lot of time for confirmation.
- Sometimes, Facebook users along with its review system might experience glitches and a temporary shutdown that could also delay the reviewing process.
How Long Does It Take To Remove A Reported Review?
Once you’ve reported a photo, it’ll be reviewed by Artificial Intelligence-driven bots and by manual reviewers too, if needed. The time it takes for the reported content to be removed varies depending on what the content is actually about.
Since Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence system doesn’t follow any specific sequence rather they rank the photos to be reviewed from the most violating to the unclear ones. Therefore, the time for removal of the content you reported may vary, usually, it takes several days or weeks.
If the photo you reported has not been taken down for a very long time, then you might report again for the team to review your reported content one more time. If the content is not likely to be violating enough and you reported it because of some personal grudge, then you shouldn’t be expecting the review team to take it down.
What Are The Benefits Of Reviewing Photos?
These networking platforms like Facebook are a source of entertainment for people and most people tend to use them to escape their worldly responsibilities.
Photo reviewing is extremely necessary in order to have a secure and fun environment rather than creating room for insensitivity and negativity.
Indulging in arguments over controversial topics or content getting viral due to explicit content creates a very unhealthy environment. Furthermore, children are using these platforms very frequently which makes it a necessity for content to be monitored before being uploaded.
Conclusion
Photos undergoing review are not of much importance to the users as long as they are careful about the content they choose to post.
In this article, we’ve covered:
- It only takes several hours to a few days for Facebook’s reviewing system to review your photo.
- It is a relatively simple process where any content that is likely to violate the community guidelines is taken under review before it is published.
- The review system consists of proactive artificial intelligence-driven bots and manual reviewers to achieve high accuracy.
- The status “pending review” is an indication that your photo is currently under review.
- If your content is harmless then it is allowed to be published and if it violates any of the rules then it is removed.
- It is not a necessity that the content you’ve reported will be taken down immediately since Facebook follows a ranking system where they prioritize the review of the most violating content to the least.
- Increased content, figuring out fake profiles, errors in the system, etc are some of the factors due to which you might experience a delay in the review process.
- This reviewing system contributes significantly to maintaining a healthy environment on the platform.
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