Despite internal research that Facebook’s platform was exploiting and exacerbating divisiveness among its users, top executives ignored the findings that the algorithms were doing the exact opposite of the company’s stated public mission to bring people together. That’s according to new reporting Tuesday from the Wall Street Journal which in a comprehensive dive into the company’s treatment of its platform’s capabilities to divide users found that executives knew in 2018 what the site was doing to users but declined to take action.
“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” a presentation to the company’s leaders in 2018 declared. The research further warned that if the problem was “left unchecked,” the platform’s system would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”
The social-media giant, which boasts its mission is to “connect the world,” reportedly launched a research project in 2017 led by Facebook’s former Chief Product Officer Chris Cox to study how its algorithms aggravate divisive and harmful content. The task force named “Common Ground” assigned employees into “Integrity Teams” throughout the company. The team reportedly found that while some groups united people from various backgrounds, others only accelerated conflict and misinformation.
Despite the evidence laid out in Cox’s team’s presentation, however, the company’s board—particularly vice president of global public policy Joel Kaplan—rejected taking action to change the platform’s algorithm and incentives.
The reporting, said tech accountability advocacy group Freedom From Google and Facebook, “proves what we’ve been saying all along: Facebook knows what it’s doing, intentionally continues to cause harm to increase engagement and profit, and will never fix these problems themselves.”
— source commondreams.org | May 26, 2020