Mike Peterson
Another Facebook whistleblower has come forward to allege that the company prioritizes revenue over combating misinformation and hate speech, echoing statements by another former employee.
The whistleblower submitted an affidavit on Friday outlining the allegations under penalty of perjury, according to The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the document. The new whistleblower is reportedly a former member of Facebook's Integrity team.
One of the key claims in the affidavit is a quote from a top Facebook communications official overheard by the unnamed whistleblower in 2016, during controversy surrounding Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election that year.
"It will be a flash in the pan," said the official of the controversy. "Some legislators will get pissy. And then in a few weeks they will move onto something else. Meanwhile we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine."
The affidavit claims that the quote is indicative of a widespread attitude within Facebook regarding problematic content. It goes on to claim that Facebook executives routinely undermined its own efforts to combat hate speech, misinformation, and other problematic content.
In some cases, it avoided fighting those types of content to avoid angering then-President Donald Trump and his allies, or out of concern about dampening user growth, the affidavit claims.
The affidavit echoes many of the same claims made by Frances Haugen, a former data scientist at Facebook who leaked documents indicating that the social media giant is aware that Instagram is bad for the mental health of some of its users. Haugen also criticized the company's track record on misinformation, political polarization, and hate speech.
The filing on Friday was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was accompanied by a second affidavit from former journalist Gretchen Peters, who now runs a group combatting illegal activities online.
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21 Comments
Facebook’s so called “Community Standards” are a joke. They literally let anyone get away with horrible acts.
What is “hate speech”? Given what gets censored at FB, I read such reports with suspicion that some left-wing snowflake wasn’t happy that they couldn’t silence every opinion they didn’t like.
Example: I commented on a decision by the German parliament with the expletive “F*ing Germans!”, which was flagged as “hate speech” and my account suspended for 48h. Really? They have utterly no context and seem to filter posts with a very crude “AI” or keyword based algorithm.
Trying to get the block lifted or the infringement expunged (since it leads to progressively longer suspensions for repeat offenses) is nearly impossible, you can submit your objection, but without any explanation text.
Another time I was arguing a hypothetical point, and it too was flagged, even though out of context it should have been clear that it was pretty much the opposite of the point I was making.
So, yeah, profit over filtering hate speech is a VERY GOOD thing, at least until they don’t have actual people with real common sense reviewing what gets filtered.
Yes FB let terrorist's and dictators from around the world to continue to spew their hate for everyone and FB is okay, but is you are some parent questioning what their kids are being taught you have to be removed from the platform so no one else can hear your concerns.Just this week FB and YouTube band any things related to LETS GO BRANDAND, and claim it is miss information. The thought police are in full 1984 mode.
Since I first heard about FB back in 2006 I have been saying it would lead to nothing good.
Not a day goes by FB doesn’t let someone promote a clear scam into my feed. Their business seems mostly be in the enabling of fraud.