Weekly Roundup #17
6 October 2021
Welcome to our latest weekly roundup! Here are the latest updates / news about social media from the Podium team.
Facebook Whistleblower Testimony
Facebook is continuing to face a slew of negative press, with the revelations from The Wall Street Journal being followed by whistleblower testimony from Frances Haugen, who worked for Facebook as a product manager in the civic misinformation team. Haugen saved many internal documents before she left the company, which she has now submitted to Congress, along with filing a number of complaints to the SEC that Facebook has misled investors over areas such as platform safety.
Haugen was the source for The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files, and confirmed at the hearing that:
- Facebook knew that teenagers felt worse after using Instagram;
- the company prioritised angry, hateful posts because those were more engaging (and kept people using Facebook);
- they were too reliant on automatic moderation systems to combat misinformation even though this only targets 10–20% of this type of content;
- misinformation efforts in general were focused too narrowly on English language speakers, despite them only making up 9% of users;
- the platform abandoned the safety measures it had put in place prior to the election, even though they were reducing misinformation;
- the focus on Meaningful Social Interactions (MSI) failed to protect “at-risk countries” from the spread of misinformation and toxic content.
The details seem to have united politicians from across the political divide, and many tech commentators observed that this hearing felt different from previous ones, namely because there was more focus on algorithms and transparency, than issues like censorship.
And what was Facebook’s response? Firstly, they tried dismissing Haugen, as someone who was not a manager, did not participate in important meetings, did not work there long enough and did not know enough about the subjects raised. Essentially, as a nobody. When that rather predictably backfired, especially when someone who Haugen had worked for backed her up, they wheeled out Mark Zuckerberg to do one of his “we’re really hurt and sad by these misrepresentations” posts. CNN and others immediately fact checked his comments, noting that far from being “illogical”, the data on teen mental health, misinformation and transparency revealed by Haugen were legitimate: there is a negative effect on teen mental health, there are not enough content moderators to tackle misinformation, and the company has tried to hide things in the past by simply not releasing data.
What will happen next remains to be seen. Facebook naturally wants to punt the question back to Congress as a regulation question (while simultaneously employing a large number of lobbyists to argue for regulation that suits them). There are a number of bills in Congress (and elsewhere: the UK has been developing its own Online Safety Bill, with the EU looking at a Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act), but some of the focus around Section 230 has made even ardent critics of tech concerned. Perhaps the focus of this testimony on specific problems like algorithms could finally aid politicians in suggesting regulations that do not just suit Facebook.
Facebook Outage
As if things had not already been horrible enough for Facebook, it suffered a huge outage that took out not only all of its apps for users for six hours, but also all of its internal platforms, including security systems, which impeded progress in being able to restart Facebook.
While much of the West made jokes on Twitter, or felt relieved to have a breather from the pressures of social media, other countries were realising how much they depended on the platform. For some people, WhatsApp is their main way of communicating with family, with other students and with business clients. The New York Times reported on a Colombian non-profit that uses WhatsApp to help women who are victims of trafficking or domestic abuse. And across Africa, Facebook products constitute much of the internet for people there, with some finding that they were unable to operate their businesses as usual.
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Of course, this dependence has been part of Facebook’s plan. Mark Zuckerberg has talked passionately about connecting the world and providing free internet to places like Africa and India, seemingly altruistically, but it is ultimately an effort to increase users and create a captive audience using only his products.
Thinking of Leaving Facebook?
The Guardian would like to hear from people who are considering leaving or reducing their time on Facebook and its family of apps, particularly in light of all the recent revelations from the company, and the effect on teen mental health. You can contact them (ironically) via WhatsApp or by completing the form underneath the article.
Events in Tech
7 October
- At 19:30 BST, the BCS Oxfordshire Branch is holding “Data Driven Decisions: Encouraging the good and avoiding the bad”, to discuss the effects of data-driven technology on organisational decision making.
- Out in Tech Atlanta is holding “Amplifying LGBTQ+ in Tech”, a two part panel in collaboration with Reddit, at 22:30 BST.
10 October
- Essteem is hosting “World Mental Health Day Hackathon” at 17:00 BST.
11 October
- AI for Good is holding a meetup to discuss “Data to Combat Violence and Abuse in Relationships” at 18:00 BST.
12 October
- There are a series of webinars being hosted for Ada Lovelace Day, on engineering, tech and art, and hypersleep.
- At 14:00 BST, Women in Tech Africa are hosting “A Conversation with Women in AI”.
- PUBLIC Germany And Oracle For Startups is holding a panel discussion on whether AI technologies can tackle the problem of fake news. “Countering Manipulation & Fake News — AI, the Silver Bullet?” is at 16:00 BST.
13 October
- The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University is hosting a panel to discuss “Lies and Elections”, on how the government should regulate content about the election, at 18:00 BST.
- The Spark Festival is being held from 13–28 October, covering a wide variety of topics such as blockchain, cybersecurity, deep tech and funding.
