Technology

Turns Out A Largely Unregulated Surveillance Site Can Be Dangerous

People are really still surprised that some billionaire is running his company for profit over accountability?

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Over the weekend, Frances Haugen Too $horted Facebook’s business practices. And there was a lot. The former product manager leaked internal research to the SEC and continues to share her findings with the American people. She is scheduled to speak to the Senate today — you should be able to follow up with her testimony here. In the interest of a preview, here is a snippet of analysis she shared earlier with 60 Minutes:

“There was conflict… between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook… and Facebook chose over and over again to optimize for its own interests — like making more money.”

Stoking the flames of hate makes sense. It’s an easy emotion to evoke and Facebook shows that it is profitable. Hopefully, there is some accountability that arises from these documents being shared. According to Facebook’s internal documents, they know that much of the “[m]isinformation, toxicity, and violent content” can be traced back to re-shares of information. Everyone and their mother’s cousin knows that if there is any information that even sneezes at a mention of COVID-19, vaccinations, or Dr. Fauci’s hallowed name, Facebook and Instagram algorithms immediately pick it up and ask the sharer if they’d like to reconsider the information that they are posting. My hunch has been that they had the capacity to police and regulate the information being shared, they just cherry picked what and when they were responsible for. And with data showing that they only police about 3-5% of the hate speech that actually takes place on the platform, it sucks to feel right about it.

Of course, this will all result in robust, positive change and not some book about how hate speech is worth protecting.

Facebook Encourages Hate Speech For Profit, Says Whistleblower [The Verge]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. Before that, he wrote columns for an online magazine named The Muse Collaborative under the pen name Knehmo. He endured the great state of Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com.

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