Facebook's global reach exceeds its grasp Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said during a Senate hearing this month in which Haugen testified. "It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users," Sen. In addition to its namesake platform, Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Haugen previously leaked a Facebook study that found that 13.5% of British teen girls in a survey said their suicidal thoughts became more frequent after they joined Instagram. They often have to get past irrelevant content to get to what matters."īusiness Ex-Facebook employee says company has known about disinformation problem for yearsĪlong with that stumbling block, young users were found to have negative views of Facebook due to privacy concerns and its potential "impact to their wellbeing," The Verge reports. "Young adults perceive content as boring, misleading, and negative. "Most young adults perceive Facebook as a place for people in their 40s and 50s," the company's researchers said, according to The Verge.
Facebook staff to decelerate significantly mandates update#
It's a worrying trend for the company - Facebook insiders got an update on that trend this year, in an internal presentation that is reflected in the documents. demographic on Facebook - a dramatic turnabout for a company whose founding mystique rests on the image of a hoodie-wearing coder creating a space for college kids to connect on.ĭuring the same timespan, Facebook has seen younger people become less likely to join the site. The entire premise of the XCheck system, the Journal's Jeff Horwitz told NPR in September, "is to never publicly tangle with anyone who is influential enough to do you harm."įacebook's own Oversight Board sharply criticized the program last week, saying the company has not been forthcoming enough about its varying standards for content moderation.Ī Facebook spokesperson told NPR in a statement that the company asked the board to review the program because it aims "to be clearer in our explanations to them going forward." Young people see Facebook content as "boring, misleading, and negative"įor much of the past decade, senior citizens have been the fastest-growing U.S. Technology Oversight Board slams Facebook for giving special treatment to high-profile usersīut the documents suggest Facebook's policy of treating influential people differently - codified in a VIP system called XCheck - was created in large part to prevent a public relations backlash from celebrities and other high-profile users. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also repeatedly insisted that Facebook is merely a platform, not the "arbiter of truth." But only a small handful were removed by Facebook, as when the then-president made dangerous claims like saying COVID-19 was less dangerous than the flu or stating that children were " almost immune from this disease."įacebook has previously defended its approach to such controversial and misleading statements, saying politicians like Trump should be allowed to say what they believe so the public knows what they think. One of the earliest revelations from the internal documents is the detail they provide about Facebook's separate set of content standards for high-profile accounts, such as those for Trump, or for celebrities.ĭuring Trump's presidency, he regularly made false and inflammatory statements about a wide range of matters. Content standards were contorted, often out of fear of riling high-profile accounts "The responsibility for the violence that occurred on January 6 lies with those who attacked our Capitol and those who encouraged them," Stone said. In a statement to NPR, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said Facebook did not bear responsibility for the Capitol siege. Haugen alleges that the trove of statements and data prove that Facebook's leaders have repeatedly and knowingly put the company's image and profitability ahead of the public good - even at the risk of violence and other harm. The documents, known collectively as the Facebook Papers, were shared in redacted form with Congress after whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, disclosed them to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those are two of the main takeaways from thousands of internal Facebook documents that NPR and other news outlets have reviewed. And they say its inability to effectively moderate content has magnified those dangers, both in the U.S. A trove of insider documents known as the Facebook Papers has the company facing backlash over its effects on society and politics.įacebook's rank-and-file employees warned their leaders about the company's effects on society and politics in the United States. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies on Capitol Hill in April 2018.
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