The Facebook ‘hate and harassment team’ led by Dave Willner is a key aspect to Facebook’s on-going battle with illegal or terms-of-service-violating content. Nonetheless, while the team’s aim is to remove offensive, illegal and incompatible content, it also raises privacy concerns for some, adding up to the bulky list of concerns the social-network has already generated.

“With Facebook’s prominence on the Web — its more than 500 million members upload more than one billion pieces of content a day — the site’s role as an arbiter of free speech is likely to become even more pronounced…But Facebook rarely pleases everyone. Any piece of content — a photograph, video, page or even a message between two individuals — could offend somebody.”

The most recent privacy concerns circulating around Facebook and free speech are of the more public type, but that wasn’t always the case. As we covered here, South Korean authorities who recently raided local Google offices demanded details from the company, particularly  user information sharing awareness. These are the same privacy issues which led FB to expand its D.C office, as we covered here.

After some serious eyebrows raised in South Korea, a massive user data leakage scandal covering all of the most popular apps on the site and more, the buzz around its ‘hate and harassment team’ is not an overly-welcome addition. Nonetheless, free speech and offensiveness are often in contrast with one another, and Willner’s team’s job is to minimize the latter; an inevitable part of the suitability of the social network.