The social media giant allows hate speech and misinformation on its platform because such content receives more engagement, alleges Frances Haugen in her complaint filed with US agency
Waquar Hasan | Clarion Indian
NEW DELHI – The US whistleblower who accuses the social media giant Facebook of ‘relegating international users, promoting global division and ethnic violence’, has mentioned India, among other countries, where RSS users, groups and pages promoted “fear-mongering, anti-Muslim narratives”.
Frances Haugen, former Facebook Product Manager, said this in her complaint filed with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) citing the internal records of Facebook. The complaints were put in public domain by Cbsnews.com.
“RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or ‘National Volunteer Organisation’] Users, Groups, and Pages promote Anti-Muslim narratives targeted pro-Hindu populations with [violent and incendiary] intent… There were a number of dehumanizing posts comparing Muslims to ‘pigs’ and ‘dogs’ and misinformation claiming the Quran calls for men to rape their female family members,” Haugen’s lawyers cited the internal records to say that when Facebook does not appropriately manage different dialects, the problem leads to violence and inciting content.
The internal record further said: “Our lack of Hindi and Bengali classifiers means much of this content is never flagged or actioned. We have yet to put forth a nomination for designation of this group given political sensitivities”.
Citing these records along with the incidents of Myanmar, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in the complaint, Huagen’s Lawyers said “Facebook misled investors and the public about bringing ‘the world closer together’ where it relegates international users and promotes global division and ethnic violence”.
In the complaint, Huagen’s lawyers said that Facebook allows hate speech and misinformation on its platform because such content receives more engagement.
“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. We also have compelling evidence that our core product mechanics, such as virality, recommendations, and optimizing for engagement, are a significant part of why these types of speech flourish on the platform…. the net result is that Facebook, taken as a whole, will be actively (if not necessarily consciously) promoting these types of activities. The mechanics of our platform are not neutral,” cited the whistleblower complaint “Facebook’s algorithms” to allege that “Facebook’s Actions and Choices Facilitated Harmful Content and Misinformation around the World”.
The whistleblower also said Facebook’s algorithms recommend content and “groups” to “individuals” citing the surveys Facebook has done in West Bengal.
“40 % of Sampled Top VPV [View Port Views] Civic Posters in West Bengal Were Fake/Inauthentic. The highest-VPV user to be assessed as inauthentic had more than 30M accrued in the L28….Coordinated authentic actors seed and spread civic content to propagate political narratives…the message comes to dominate the ecosystem with over 35% of members having been recommended a cell group by our algorithms,” the whistleblower cited internal documents.
Apart from that, the Whistleblower also flagged that the BJP IT Cell workers use duplicate accounts to promote the political narrative.
The complaint filed on behalf of Haugen also accused Facebook of misleading investors and the public about “transparency” reports boasting proactive removal of over 90% of identified hate speech when internal records show that “as little as 3-5% of hate speech” is actually removed.
“We only take action against approximately 2% of the hate speech on the platform. Recent estimates suggest that unless there is a major change in strategy, it will be very difficult to improve this beyond 10-20% in the short-medium term,” cited whistleblower internal study of Facebook in the complaint.
Facebook’s another document was cited as saying “We’re deleting less than 5% of all of the hate speech posted to Facebook. This is actually an optimistic estimate.”
