The disclosure of documents by an ex-worker has revealed a lot of information about the inner workings of Mark Zuckerberg’s company and these are the 7 key points of this leak.
Former Facebook worker Frances Haugen recently ran a leak that uncovered a lot of Facebook’s dirty laundry. These documents, known as the Facebook papers, tell how the company has acted in certain cases.
The way in which they have carried out certain operations has put Mark Zuckerberg’s company in a bad position. Despite the fact that Zuckerberg himself had to testify before the United States Congress at the time, it seems that his company continues to be the subject of controversy.
These Facebook papers cover a variety of topics : the company’s attempts to attract teenage audiences, an inability to combat hate speech, even threats to political leaders.
Many are covered in these documents. Several journalists have carried out verification work to observe that what is established in this leak is true and it seems that it is.
Despite everything that can be extracted from the Facebook papers, here are the 7 most important points of the massive leak:
- Facebook has not removed the harmful content. According to Zuckerberg, 94% of the hate content had been removed, but it really does not reach 5%.
- After the 2020 elections, the company dispensed with the functions that were in charge of eliminating disinformation and violence campaigns. Deactivating these measures contributed to the January 2021 riots in the United States.
- Hate speech was reported globally, but Facebook couldn’t stop it from spreading fast enough. Despite this, he continued working and expanding his influence in areas with significant political tensions, without verifying how they could affect the publications of the social network in those places.
- Action was only taken in cases where a crisis had already exploded . Usually it was intervened when it was too late.
- Facebook has problems with languages other than English . Its protection systems can detect English, to safeguard or report publications. But in areas like Myanmar and Ethiopia, where massive civil unrest has led to thousands of deaths, the company did not have language selection capabilities so people could freely post.
- The company could not adequately detect posts about electoral disinformation unless they clearly broke the platform’s rules. Many alerts detected and reported by employees were left unresolved due to this situation.
- Facebook was aware that maidens were being sold on its social network . Apple threatened to remove Facebook and Instagram from its treaty on slavery and exploitation. Zuckerberg’s company removed many of these ads, but posts about it can still be found.
This massive leak has not done well for Facebook, which has been trying to get a better image in recent months. Now that all these errors have been revealed, we will see what consequences they have.
We will continue to inform about it. It seems that this matter could go on for a long time and many media are awaiting what is going to happen.