Hatred and agitation in the largest market: New disclosure puts Facebook under pressure

Hatred and agitation in the largest market
New reveal puts pressure on Facebook

For the third time within a few weeks, Facebook internals are made public. The latest revelations suggest that calls for violence and hate messages have been inadequately followed up in India, Facebook’s largest market. The calls for more control are getting louder.

The US Internet giant Facebook is under pressure because of further revelations about its handling of incidents of violence in the important Indian market. As reported by several US media over the weekend, citing internal company documents, the group had failed to contain false information and hate messages in its Indian platforms despite the advice of its own analysts. Facebook was aware that the weak moderation makes its platforms vulnerable to abuse.

Facebook has already been accused by the former product manager Frances Haugen of putting its own profits above the safety of people and in doing so accepting devastating consequences for people, democracy and society. Another informant followed suit last week and reported, according to the Washington Post, of internal discussions in which alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election was downplayed via Facebook’s services.

Facebook has firmly denied the allegations. However, the revelations have increased calls for stricter regulations from Facebook and Internet companies as a whole.

“More pictures of the dead than in a lifetime”

According to the latest revelations, Facebook analysts in India had seen a sharp increase in “rumors and calls to violence” from December 2019. The Wall Street Journal reported that Whatsapp was particularly bad in February 2020 when dozens of people died in clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India. The group then sent dozens of researchers there to talk to users about their experiences with the platform’s algorithm.

In February 2019, scientists had also created a fictitious Facebook profile of a 21-year-old user in northern India. Without the researchers’ intervention, the profile was flooded with “propaganda” for the Hindu nationalist head of government Narendra Modi and “hate speech against Muslims,” ​​reported the Washington Post from an internal memo. “I have seen more pictures of the dead in the past three weeks than in my entire life,” wrote the researcher who led the experiment, according to the New York Times.

India is the largest market for Facebook in terms of user numbers. However, according to media reports, internal documents showed that most of the budget was devoted to combating disinformation, even though the US accounts for less than 10 percent of users.

A company spokesman said the company had stepped up its fight against hate speech in non-English languages. “Hate speech against marginalized groups, including Muslims, is increasing around the world,” and Facebook is “improving the enforcement of its rules” to address this, the spokesman said.

.
source site