Go Live on Facebook! Broadcast to the largest audience in the world with the camera in your pocket.
That’s what Facebook says… but their community standards are restrictive, sometimes seem arbitrary, and are not conducive to webcam promotion.
Facebook Live could change all that.
Facebook Live lets people, public figures and pages share live video with their followers and friends. It’s like Periscope and Livestream and Ustream and so many other apps, just within the Facebook universe — with Facebook traffic.
If at any time you want to know what’s streaming on Facebook Live, there’s a desktop-only map that showcases all the public live videos in progress, indicated by blue dots. Click on any of the active dots and essentially be teleported to wherever the action is happening. But according a recent report from Mashable, “instead of historic sights or live events, you’re more likely to come across flashes of boobs and butts, replete with an audience suggesting what to reveal next, and maybe a pirated TV show or soccer game, too.” Action is right!
Unsurprisingly, on more than one occasion since the service launched, the top streaming content has featured cam models. So, if you were under the impression that teasing from your room before you hopped online wouldn’t be allowed, apparently you’re incorrect. Those acts in and of themselves don’t violate Facebook’s community standards as long as (lady) nipples and vulva are covered.
According to Mashable,“Facebook Live isn’t always safe for work, but Facebook doesn’t have a problem with that.”
Facebook reached out to Mashable after the story was published to clarify Facebook’s policy for handling what’s shown to users. While previous statements said live video is removedonly after user-flagging and the moderators do not “proactively” review videos, a clarified statement specified human moderators hand-vette videos that reach a certain viewership threshold. In other words, a very popular live stream of a model doing a striptease will attract attention from Facebook mods. One watched by only a handful of people though, not so much.
Unsurprisingly, Facebook declined to disclose to Mashable what the threshold is and if that threshold matches what is shown on the live map.
Bottom line: There may be a little gray area to play with in terms of using Facebook Live for work-related promotion. Stay within Facebook’s long-standing terms of service, including the real-names policy (for which there are workarounds) and proceed with caution.
