Facebook employees have already warned about the election due to the polarization around vote rigging |  Technique

Facebook employees have already warned about the election due to the polarization around vote rigging | Technique

Several Facebook employees and researchers have warned in the months surrounding the 2020 US presidential election about the polarizing messages surrounding voting fraud pervasive on the platform. to write New York times Based on the internal documentation of the social media platform.




The documents said employees have warned for years about the network’s ability to spread extremist messages. It also happened around the time of the 2020 presidential election, when then-President Trump claimed he lost it through mass vote-rigging.

Shortly after the election, a Facebook employee said he was concerned about misinformation circulating about vote counts. The employee wrote that inflammatory messages about voter fraud appeared at the top of most comment sections, spreading inaccurate information.

Afraid of user complaints

A few days later, a data scientist said that as many as one in 50 Facebook views went to content that declared the vote fraudulent. However, Facebook did not take or take any action until later, according to the documents, because they feared complaints from users.

In March, two internal reports were published examining the company’s role in vote rigging. In it, employees said Facebook is working on a “pattern” of taking “limited or no action” first against groups that spread misinformation. This only happens later, when the disinformation has already been spread. In this case, part of the problem was also that the rules had too many gray areas immediately after the election, making it unclear to staff which posts could or could not be deleted.

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Facebook has come under fire in recent weeks because of the revelations Bell Francis Hogan. Haugen also repeatedly saw during her time at the company that Facebook believed that profit was more important than public safety. Announced at the beginning of October with still More revelations To get to know her previous employer.

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