The paperwork, and the tales based mostly on them, raised considerations in regards to the potential real-world harms from Fb’s numerous platforms. In addition they provide perception into the interior workings of the corporate, together with its strategy to misinformation and hate speech moderation, each within the US and internationally, in addition to worker reactions to considerations about firm selections.
Fb has repeatedly tried to discredit Haugen and mentioned experiences on the paperwork mischaracterize its actions. “On the coronary heart of those tales is a premise which is fake,” a Fb spokesperson beforehand mentioned in an announcement to CNN. “Sure, we’re a enterprise and we make revenue, however the concept that we accomplish that on the expense of individuals’s security or wellbeing misunderstands the place our personal business pursuits lie.”
Listed here are some key quotes from the paperwork offered to this point.
Vaccine misinformation
A Fb spokesperson mentioned the corporate has made enchancment on the problems raised within the inner memos.
Human trafficking
Based on one inner report from January 2020 entitled “Home Servitude and Labor Trafficking within the Center East,” a Fb investigation discovered the next: “Our platform allows all three levels of the human exploitation lifecycle (recruitment, facilitation, exploitation) by way of advanced real-world networks. … The traffickers, recruiters and facilitators from these ‘businesses’ used FB [Facebook] profiles, IG [Instagram] profiles, Pages, Messenger and WhatsApp.”
A Fb spokesperson instructed CNN: “We prohibit human exploitation in no unsure phrases.” The spokesperson mentioned it has “been combatting human trafficking on our platform for a few years.”
The algorithm’s affect
Fb instructed CNN the introduction of the metric wasn’t a “sea change” in how the corporate ranked customers’ exercise on the social community because it beforehand thought of likes, feedback, and shares as a part of its rating.
Gaps in worldwide protection
In a public assertion addressing experiences regarding the leaked analysis, Fb mentioned, “We now have an industry-leading course of for reviewing and prioritizing international locations with the very best danger of offline hurt and violence, each six months. After we reply to a disaster, we deploy country-specific assist as wanted.”
