Leaked Facebook Research

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-22-2021

Leaked Facebook research shows how the company 'literally helped facilitate a cult':

Leaked Facebook research obtained by NBC News reveals how the company's algorithms would flood ordinary conservatives' pages with extremist content and make it easier for them to get indoctrinated by QAnon.

According to NBC, researchers at the company created a dummy Facebook profile of a conservative mother who liked both Fox News and conservative broadcaster Sinclair.

What they found was that the account's page within days was stuffed full of recommendations for QAnon pages that warned her Democrats were not merely people she disagreed with, but a vast Satanic pedophile ring.

"The body of research consistently found Facebook pushed some users into 'rabbit holes,' increasingly narrow echo-chambers where violent conspiracy theories thrived," writes NBC. "People radicalized through these rabbit holes make up a small slice of total users, but at Facebook's scale, that can mean millions of individuals."

What makes this experiment particularly interesting is that Facebook pushed these pages to users even though they explicitly violated the company's policies against published hate speech and disinformation, suggesting that the platform's algorithms were designed to push user engagement over everything else.

"These documents effectively confirm what outside researchers were saying for years prior, which was often dismissed by Facebook," Renée DiResta, technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, tells NBC News.
"Facebook literally helped facilitate a cult."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-22-2021

'History will not judge us kindly': Facebook internal messages show employees fuming on Jan. 6 over company's role in Capitol riot.

Facebook employees fumed with anger and regret on an internal messaging system on Jan. 6, as they blamed the company for contributing to the Capitol insurrection.

"This is not a new problem," one employee wrote on Facebook's Workplace messaging system, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

"We have been watching this behavior from politicians like Trump, and the — at best — wishy washy actions of company leadership, for years now. We have been reading the [farewell] posts from trusted, experienced and loved colleagues who write that they simply cannot conscience working for a company that does not do more to mitigate the negative effects on its platform."

Another employee wrote bitterly on Workplace: "Never forget the day Trump rode down the escalator in 2015, called for a ban on Muslims entering the US, [and] we determined that it violated our policies, and yet we explicitly overrode the policy and didn't take the video down.
There is a straight line that can be drawn from that day to today, one of the darkest days in the history of democracy and self-governance. Would it have made a difference in the end? We can never know, but history will not judge us kindly."

A third employee recalled the anger in June 2020, after Black Lives Matter protesters had been forcibly cleared from a park next to the White House before Trump walked through for a photo opportunity during which he denounced the demonstrations, the Post reports.

"Employees have been crying out for months to start treating high-level political figures the same way we treat each other on the platform. That's all we're asking for," the employee wrote.
"Last we spoke, innocent protesters were tear-gassed under the orders of a political figure whose message was amplified.
Today, a coup was attempted against the United States. I hope circumstances aren't even more dire next time we speak."

The Post's report is based on thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents that were turned over to the Securities and Exchange Commission by whistleblower Frances Haugen.

"The SEC documents, which were provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen's legal counsel and reviewed by The Post and other news organizations, suggest that Facebook moved too quickly after the election to lift measures that had helped suppress some election-related misinformation," the newspaper reports.
"The rushed effort to restore them on Jan. 6 was not enough to stop the surge of hateful, violent posts, documents show.

A company after-action report concluded that in
the weeks after the election, Facebook did not act forcefully enough against the Stop the Steal movement that was pushed by Trump's political allies, even as its presence exploded across the platform."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-22-2021

'Do you want to start a fight with Steve Bannon?' Facebook accused of exempting Breitbart from
ban on false reports.

Facebook reportedly exempted the right-wing site Breitbart and other "select publishers" from rules against spreading false news reports, according to
a new whistleblower who filed a complaint against the social-media company with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The whistleblower, a former member of Facebook's Integrity team, told the Washington Post that Joel Kaplan, a former Bush administration official who led the company's Public Policy team, once defended the decision to "white list" Breitbart.

"When a person in the video conference questioned this policy, Kaplan, the vice president of global policy, responded by saying, 'Do you want to start a fight with Steve Bannon?'" the whistleblower told the Post.

Kaplan, who has long been accused of using his role at Facebook to protect conservative interests, denied the whistleblower's account.

"No matter how many times these same stories are repurposed and re-told, the facts remain the same," Kaplan said in a statement.

"I have consistently pushed for fair treatment of all publishers, irrespective of ideological viewpoint, and advised that analytical and methodological rigor is especially important when it comes to algorithmic changes.
There has never been a whitelist that exempts publishers, including Breitbart, from Facebook's rules against misinformation."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-24-2021

Facebook refused to remove Breitbart as 'news' because it could anger Trump —
employee chats reveal.

The Wall Street Journal is among the many news outlets revealing what is being called
"The Facebook Papers," exposing some of the controversies that have contributed to the criticism against the company.

It was the summer of 2020 and America was aghast after watching George Floyd being murdered by a police officer as others begged him to let the man breathe. Inside of a Facebook employee chat someone proclaimed,
"Get Breitbart out of News Tab."

The News tab is the list of news outlets that Facebook deems legitimate enough to promote. The move came after a slew of fake news websites were able to create conspiracy theories that spread across the platform in the 2016 election and that have spread COVID-19 misinformation in the years since.
Breitbart is one of the many far-right websites that exist, pushing conservative talking points.

At the time, the site was publishing stories like "Minneapolis Mayhem: Riots in Masks," "Massive Looting, Buildings in Flames, Bonfires!" and "BLM Protesters Pummel Police Cars on 101.

" A report revealed that more than 93 percent of protests in the Summer of 2020 were peaceful,
the far-right was promoting the message that all of them were violent and implying that no community was safe.

According to the Journal, the Facebook staffer claimed the stories were "emblematic of a concerted effort at Breitbart and similarly hyperpartisan sources (none of which belong in News Tab) to paint Black Americans and Black-led movements in a very negative way." The documents show that many other Facebook employees agreed.

Meanwhile, a researcher for Facebook said that removing Breitbart may be a problem because it was one of President Donald Trump's favorite sites.

"At best, it would be a very difficult policy discussion," the researcher replied.

Breitbart stayed, as have other far-right sites and "news" personalities who regularly promote false information but are still allowed to flourish on the News Tab.

There were other documents that showed the management team were trying to avoid being called biased. The result is that they ultimately ended up becoming more biased by prioritizing conservative content because of the complaints by Trump and conservatives, a 2020 Politico report said at the time.

"Facebook employees, as seen in a large quantity of internal message-board conversations, have agitated consistently for the company to act against far-right sites," said the report.

"In many cases, they have framed their arguments around Facebook's enforcement of its own rules, alleging that Facebook is giving the right-wing publishers a pass to avoid PR blowback.
As one employee put it in an internal communication: 'We're scared of political backlash if we enforce our policies without exemptions.'"

The documents show that the employees specifically focused on Breitbart, not because it is so far-right but because it's known for false information.

After the 2016 election, Breitbart editor Alex Marlow, editor of Breitbart, admitted that the website intentionally skewed content to attack Judge Roy Moore's teen accusers in an effort to protect Donald Trump.

"Marlow said he had no regrets about Breitbart's coverage of the race and stressed that the nationalist, populist website will not be changing course as a result of it."

CNN reported in Dec. 2017. "Until Election Day, Breitbart seemingly did everything in its power to try to discredit Moore's accusers. Marlow said one of the factors in Breitbart's coverage of the allegations against Moore is that, he believes, the news media was trying to use them to set a bar on sexual misconduct that President Trump cannot match."

"I think they want to create a standard where President Trump... will not be able to match whatever standard is now in place for who can be a senator," he said. "Based off not any sort of conviction or any sort of admission of guilt, but based off of purely allegations. I think that's the playbook here.

And I think it's part of the reason why it was so important for Breitbart to continue our coverage of the way we covered it ... and for Steve in particular to hold the line -- it's not just about Judge Moore, it is not even just about establishment, anti-establishment. It's about what's coming next for President Trump."

The Journal cited the data firm NewsWhip, which revealed that right-wing sites are almost always the top-performing publishers on the platform.
It's one of the many reasons people on the left believe that Facebook's algorithm prioritizes far-right content because the majority of the United States leans left of center, characterized The Atlantic in 2016.

Facebook claims they enforce their rules equally, but that isn't the allegation. The rules may be enforced equally, but the algorithm is what is prioritizing conservative content.

The Wall Street Journal has a full cache of files it intends to reveal over the coming weeks from
"The Facebook Papers." The site called it an "unprecedented look at Facebook's struggles to manage the products."

Read the full report at WSJ.com.

Subject: Re: Leaked Facebook Research Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:20 am

Facebook VP reportedly told employees to brace themselves for 'more bad headlines'
Brigid Kennedy, Contributing Writer
Sun, October 24, 2021, 11:42 AM

There might be more alarming Facebook headlines in the works — and the company is apparently steeling itself for that likelihood.

According to a post obtained by Axios, Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg told staffers Saturday that "we need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I'm afraid." Clegg warned that the new coverage would likely "contain mischaracterizations of our research, our motives and where our priorities lie," and told employees to "listen and learn from criticism when it is fair, and push back strongly when it is not," per Axios. "But, above all else," he wrote, "we should keep our heads held high and do the work we came here to do."

The social network has been slammed by negative press, as former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked damning internal company documents to both Congress and The Wall Street Journal, alleging the company knows and ignores the harm it causes, and chooses its financial bottom line "at all costs." Since then, Axios says, a group of 17 news outlets have come together to form the "Facebook Consortium" and report on those same leaked documents, now dubbed "The Facebook Papers." The Journal is not part of the consortium.

The group's organizers reportedly "aimed to amplify findings from the leaked documents by having many news organizations report on them simultaneously, creating a big splash," writes Axios, likely explaining this weekend's Facebook news dump. And unfortunately for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, sources said the public can expect "much more reporting based off the documents in the coming days and weeks."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-25-2021

Facebook's Zuckerberg gave personal approval
to censor critics of Vietnam's government.

According to a report from the Washington Post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg caved to the government of Vietnam and allowed the censoring
of critics of the country's leaders and policies.

Zuckerberg is currently under fire after a whistleblower provided evidence and testimony before Congress that showed the company put profits before the public's safety that now has the company scrambling to limit the public fallout.

According to the report, Zuckerberg was made aware of complaints from the Vietnam government and agreed with them out of fear of seeing Facebook banned in a profitable market.

The report states, "In America, the tech CEO is a champion of free speech, reluctant to remove even malicious and misleading content from the platform.

But in Vietnam, upholding the free speech rights
of people who question government leaders could have come with a significant cost in a country where the social network earns more than $1 billion in annual revenue, according to a 2018 estimate by Amnesty International."

The Post is reporting that three insiders have come forward, after being promised anonymity, and claimed the tech mogul came down on the side of the government.

"So Zuckerberg personally decided that Facebook would comply with Hanoi's demands," the Post is reporting, adding, "Ahead of Vietnam's party congress in January, Facebook significantly increased censorship of "anti-state" posts, giving the government near-total control over the platform, according to local activists and free speech advocates."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

20-25-2021

Facebook quickly leads users from Melania Trump
to QAnon and white genocide: whistleblower.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen confirmed reports that new users can be quickly led to extremist content by the site's algorithm.

A researcher employed by the social media company set up a fake account showing interest in politics, parenting, Christianity, Fox News and Donald Trump, and within two days the algorithm was recommending groups dedicated to QAnon and other conspiratorial content that violated Facebook's own rules.

"Facebook has said it takes two to tango," Haugen told a U.K. parliamentary committee Monday.
"Nick Clegg wrote a post back in March saying,
'don't blame us for the extreme content you see on Facebook.
You chose your friends, you chose your interests,
it takes two to tango. When you make a brand-new account and you follow some mainstream interests, for example, Fox News, Trump, Melania, it will lead you very rapidly to QAnon, it will lead you very rapidly to white genocide content."

"But this isn't just true on the right, it's true on the left, as well. These systems lead to amplification and division, I think you're right -- it's a question of, like, the system wants to find the content that will make you engaged more and that is extreme, polarizing content."

"Facebook is very good at dancing with data," she added.
"They have very good communicators and the reality is, like, the business model is leading them to dangerous actions."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-25-30-31

Facebook execs could face 'criminal charges' after new leaks: NYU professor.

Monday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," New York University Professor Scott Galloway suggested that the revelations in the "Facebook Papers" could ultimately lead to criminal liability
for executives at the social networking giant.

Appearing on CNN Monday, Galloway told host Anderson Cooper that the leaked documents produced by whistleblower Frances Haugen could produce major legal problems for Facebook.

"For the first time, actually believe it's — this is elevated from regulation from anti-trust to criminal charges," he said.
"I think there are now, in these documents, evidence of several different fronts that the company will be — or individuals will be charged criminally with."

"It's so interesting," said Cooper. "You know, Netflix picks the movies it thinks I might like and I think, okay, well that's a good idea. But we are allowing more and more control over to these algorithms using artificial intelligence that we have no idea — even the programmers, themselves, often don't know all the decisions, how the algorithms make the decisions that they do."

"Yeah, and that's really the correct point, Anderson," said Galloway. "At some point, the violation of your privacy becomes criminal when it results in a loss of autonomy.
So we decide children don't have their own agency and that they don't have the autonomy in child labor, so we have laws against that. Did the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th have a loss of autonomy because they have been fed so much misinformation?

We have individuals all over the world that are losing their autonomy because Facebook is able to gather data and decide that you would like to hear a confirmation bias."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-26-2021

Facebook let Mexican drug cartel recruit and post violent content on its platform — despite being flagged internally.

On Monday, CNN flagged one of the revelations about Facebook's management failures in the bombshell release of the so-called "Facebook Papers":

Specifically, how the company allowed a violent drug cartel to operate on its platform — and how, even after a Wall Street Journal report last month detailing this was going on, it persisted as recently as last week.

"A report published by the Journal on September 16 ... highlighted internal Facebook research about a violent Mexican drug cartel, known as Cartél Jalisco Nueva Generación," reported Clare Duffy.

"The cartel was said to be using the platform to post violent content and recruit new members using the acronym 'CJNG,' even though it had been designated internally as one of the 'Dangerous Individuals and Organizations' whose content should be removed. Facebook told the Journal at the time that it was investing in artificial intelligence to bolster its enforcement against such groups."

"Despite the Journal's report last month, CNN last week identified disturbing content linked to the group on Instagram, including photos of guns, and photo and video posts in which people appear to have been shot or beheaded," said the report.

"After CNN asked Facebook about the posts, a spokesperson confirmed that multiple videos CNN flagged were removed for violating the company's policies, and at least one post had a warning added."

The new reports come after multiple Facebook whistleblowers have come forward, detailing the ways the company was aware their platform was creating and exacerbating unrest, disinformation, and harm
to children, and failed to act.

Facebook has denied wrongdoing, saying that the former employees are mischaracterizing their policies.

Subject: Re: Leaked Facebook Research Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:11 pm

Missed Tesla? Here's The Next $1 Trillion Company
MATT KRANTZ
Tue, October 26, 2021, 6:00 AM

The idea of an S&P 500 company hitting $1 trillion in market value used to seem impossible. But analysts insist another is on the way.

https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-miss-tesla-ready-for-next-trillion-dollar-company/

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