17 news outlets have started publishing what are called “Facebook papers”, which contain information about what the company did internally during certain important events. The information was given to the media by the alarmist on Facebook, Francis Haugen, who left the company with thousands of internal documents that she shared with the Congress.
Documents reveal that they are employed in Facebook were frustrated, while the Capitol was attacked on January 6. According to the AP, one wrote on an internal channel: “Haven’t we had enough time to figure out how to manage discourse without enabling violence? We have been fueling this fire for a long time and we should not be surprised now that it is out of control“.
Associated Press (AP) also revealed that Facebook introduced measures before the 2020 elections to prevent the platform from spreading dangerous and violent content. However, the AP revealed that as many as 22 measures were rejected after the elections and before the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Facebook says it removed those measures after analyzing the signals from its own platform and law enforcement agencies.
The documents also show that Facebook was worried about the loss of young users and planned to take steps to reverse this decline. Such steps would include asking young users to update their links, while Facebook would “tweak” algorithms to show users posts outside their network. The company revealed that the use of the platform among teenagers has dropped by 13% since 2019, and is expected to fall by as much as 45% in the next two years!
The Verge reports that during a presentation made on Facebook last March, a team of data scientists said: “Most young people perceive Facebook as a place for people in their 40s and 50s. Younger adults perceive the content as boring, deceptive and negative. they often have to overcome irrelevant content to get to what matters.“Facebook responded by saying that it is no different from other social media that want teenagers to use their platform.
The AP also revealed that Facebook has problems with moderating content written in non-English languages. Facebook documents show that content in Arabic is especially difficult for Facebook to moderate. Those who communicate in Arabic use symbols or add spaces when writing about militant groups and this triggers red flags within the company.
Some users have discovered ways to avoid Facebook’s system of moderating and censoring hate speech. Facebook said in an internal document: “We misappropriated anti-terrorist content in Arabic,” which “restricts users from participating in political speech, impeding their right to freedom of expression.” The AP says that Facebook told them that it wants to add more local experts in dialect and current topics, while at the same time looking for ways to improve its system.
Internal documents also revealed that “insufficient enforcement in relation to confirmed violent activity“After the Philippine maids complained that they were abused on Facebook. Apple has threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram out of its App Store because the platform was used to buy, sell and trade maids.
The AP states that even today, two years later, Facebook users who are looking for “maids” in Arabic (“khadima”) will see photos of Africans and South Asians with the stated years and prices. And yet, after Apple relented, Facebook and Instagram remain available to iOS users for installation from the App Store.
Facebook issued a statement today saying: “At the heart of these stories is a false premise. Yes, we are a business and we make a profit, but the idea of doing it to the detriment of people’s safety is misunderstood. The real truth is that we have invested 13 billion dollars and that we have over 40,000 people who have only one job: to protect people on Facebook. “
source: theverge
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