F4(b). Data about account restrictions to enforce terms of service

The company should clearly disclose and regularly publish data about the volume and nature of actions taken to restrict accounts that violate the company’s rules.

Elements

1. Does the company publish data on the total number of accounts restricted for violating the company’s own rules?
2. Does the company publish data on the number of accounts restricted based on which rule was violated?
3. Does the company publish data on the number of accounts restricted based on the method used to identify the violation?
4. Does the company publish this data at least four times a year?
5. Can the data be exported as a structured data file?

Account restriction / restrict a user’s account — Limitation, suspension, deactivation, deletion, or removal of a specific user account or permissions on a user’s account.

Clearly disclose(s) — The company presents or explains its policies or practices in its public-facing materials in a way that is easy for users to find and understand.

Structured data — “Data that resides in fixed fields within a record or file. Relational databases and spreadsheets are examples of structured data. Although data in XML files are not fixed in location like traditional database records, they are nevertheless structured, because the data are tagged and can be accurately identified.” Conversely, unstructured data is data that “does not reside in fixed locations. The term generally refers to free-form text, which is ubiquitous. Examples are word processing documents, PDF files, e-mail messages, blogs, Web pages and social sites.” Sources: PC Mag Encyclopedia: “structured data” http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/52162/structured-data

“unstructured data” http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/53486/unstructured-data

Indicator guidance: Companies can and should set clear rules about what types of content or activities are not permitted on their platforms or services. This indicator expects companies to publicly disclose data about the actions they take to enforce these rules. Publishing this data is an essential first step to holding companies accountable for enforcing their own rules and for the actions they take to moderate content on their platforms and services.

As of the 2020 RDR Index, no telecommunications company received any credit on this indicator. For telecommunications companies, taking action against accounts violating their rules could entail restricting a subscribers’ ability to disseminate SMS. It could also include restricting a subscriber’s ability to keep hosting a web site on their server, if the block was done to fulfill the company’s own rules rather than an external request (external requests for blocking are covered in indicators F5, F6, and F7).

Companies should publish data about the number of accounts they restrict as a result of terms of service violations (Element 1). They should also break out this data by violation (Element 2) and by the method—such as a community flagger program or automation—through which the rules violation was detected (Element 3). Companies should also publish this data at least four times a year (Element 4) and in a structured data file (Element 5).

• Company transparency report
• Company community standards enforcement report, community guidelines enforcement report, etc.