By Muslim Mirror Desk
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has revealed that the social media platform magnifies hate and profits from the promotion of hate on its platform.
These claims were made by Haugen, a data scientist and former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team, in an interview this week, as well as in leaked business documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
While the company claims that it helps stop hate speech, one internal Facebook document leaked by Haugen says, “We estimate that we may action as little as 3-5% of hate and ~0.6% of V&I [Violence and Incitement] on Facebook despite being the best in the world at it.”
“When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content it erodes our civic trust, it erodes our faith in each other, it erodes our ability to want to care for each other, the version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” she said.
She said that the platform didn’t keep a check on the calls for genocide during ethnic violence in various places including Myanmar, 2018.
“We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech, and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world,” another document said.
“There was conflict… between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Haugen said during the 60 Minutes show, “and Facebook chose over and over again to optimize for its own interests — like making more money.”
Haugen said that the causes of the problem are the algorithims introduced in 2018 that govern what users see on the platform.
She said that Facebook’s “own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divisive, that is polarizing, it’s easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions.
