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This Monday, October 4th, we experienced chaos on the internet after the down servers for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other services. But this was not the first setback for the Mark Zuckerberg this week. Last Sunday (3), during the program 60 Minutes, from CBS News, a former employee accused the Facebook of putting “profit over security” by adopting algorithms that amplify hate speech, as well as hiding search results from the public and investors. 1c2u26
The former employee, s Haugen, worked as a product manager at the company and was responsible for election-related projects. She presented a series of complaints about the practices of the social network on several fronts. In addition to the televised interview, she also ed on documents to the Wall Street Journal which showed, among other things, that there is a policy to protect celebrities — that they do not have to respect internal rules — and that Instagram knows that the network is “toxic” for teenagers, but does nothing.
Also according to Haugen, such complaints about research results that were “hidden” from investors and the public were also presented to US bodies. She should be heard by a Senate committee this Tuesday (5).
turning a blind eye 1r3j5b
According to the old profile in the LinkedIn, Haugen worked at Facebook until early 2021. She reveals that she did not believe the company was willing to invest in what is really necessary for the platform to be a healthy environment.
“There was an internal conflict between what was good for the public and what was good for the company. The company has chosen several times to optimize the algorithms for its own interests, such as making more money.” said the former employee.
Haugen says the problem started with Facebook's algorithm launched in 2018. Analyzing the forms of engagement, the platform found that content that inspired fear and hatred in s was the best performing.
Mark Zuckerberg, in turn, said at the time that the changes were “positive and aimed at the well-being of the people”. However, the result became an increase in the spread of content related to hate speech.
“Misinformation, toxicity, and violent content are overly prevalent among new shares,” cites an internal memo about the algorithm changes reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
A leaked document also highlights: “We estimate that we can work less with 3-5% hate content and about 0,6% violence and incitement on Facebook.”
Another document says: “We have evidence that a variety of sources of hate speech, divisive political speech and disinformation on Facebook and the app family are affecting societies around the world”.
Haugen was incisive and said: “the version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart causing ethnic violence across the world”.
Reaction from the market 2u6m44
After the massive coverage of Haugen's allegations, Facebook shares fell 4,89% on the US stock exchange. In addition to the stock market, Mark Zuckerberg's company's profits are falling every second, literally with the drop in services on a global scale this Monday afternoon (4).
As if everything wasn't already bad, according to the Privacy Affairs, Hackers Are Selling Data Of 1,5 Billion Facebook s. For now, there is no confirmation that the sale of data is directly related to the downfall of social network servers. However, all this chaos must be taken into for investors.
Facebook representatives deny allegations 3b363r
Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook, was on the show Reliable Sources, from the American CNN. Hours before 60 Minutes, the executive defended the company over recent published allegations. "This is ridiculous. I think it's a comfort to people to assume that there must be a technological explanation for the issues of political polarization in the US,” Clegg said.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone also refuted the allegations, saying that “suggesting that we encourage harmful content and do nothing is not true”.
Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head of security, has been scrutinized by US lawmakers over the social network Instagram because it has an algorithm generated by the application that performs an automatic search and fills in the feeds with photos that can have a harmful impact on children.
Facebook also spoke out in Brazil, in response to the G1, the company also denies the allegations:
“Every day, our teams work to protect the ability of billions of people to express themselves openly while keeping our platform a safe and positive place. We continue to make significant improvements to combat misinformation and harmful content on our services. To suggest that we encourage harmful content and do nothing about it is simply not true.”
Want to know more about what could have caused the Facebook servers and other social networks in the group to crash? Check out our report explaining how a DNS error may have caused the blackout on the internet this Monday.
