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Facebook Blames 'Technical Issues" for Its Broken Promise to the US Congress (themarkup.org) 37

Posted by EditorDavid from the mistakes-were-made dept.
Facebook is blaming "technical issues" for its broken promise to the U.S. Congress to stop recommending political groups to its users, reports The Markup: Facebook made the pledge once in October, in the run-up to the presidential election, and then falsely reiterated it had taken the step after rioters overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a deadly event partially coordinated by users on the platform.

The Markup first revealed that Facebook was still recommending groups...in an investigation published on Jan. 19. Examining the top 100 groups recommended to roughly 1,900 users on our Citizen Browser panel, we identified 12 as political — including groups with posts calling for violence against lawmakers, spreading election-related conspiracy theories, and coordinating logistics for attending the rally that led to the Capitol riot.

Citizen Browser is a data-driven project examining the choices Facebook makes about what content to amplify.

A week after our report, U.S. senator Ed Markey sent a letter to the company, demanding an explanation, and on Feb. 10, Facebook replied in a letter to Markey. "The issue stemmed from technical issues in the designation and filtering process that allowed some Groups to remain in the recommendation pool when they should not have been," Facebook said in its response. "Since becoming aware of this issue, we have worked quickly to update our processes, and we continue this work to improve our designation and filtering processes to make them as accurate and effective as possible...." Following publication of our story, recommendations for political groups dropped precipitously, as our Citizen Browser panelist data shows...

The "technical issues" meant that, from Election Day on Nov. 3 to the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots to President Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, Facebook was still recommending political groups to its users. Our analysis found that Facebook particularly pushed political groups to more conservative users... Facebook's own internal research has consistently pointed to the danger posed by political groups on its platform. Researchers warned Facebook in a 2016 internal report that 64 percent of new members of extremist groups joined because of the social network's recommendations, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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Facebook Blames 'Technical Issues" for Its Broken Promise to the US Congress More

Facebook Blames 'Technical Issues" for Its Broken Promise to the US Congress

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  • Isn't this the same tune every time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jack9 ( 11421 ) on Saturday February 13, 2021 @11:36AM (#61059452)

    If there aren't any repercussions, any excuse will do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      There's always "technical issues". Otherwise everyone would be a software engineer.

    • If there aren't any repercussions, any excuse will do.

      What repercussions? The problem is that any actual repercussion from the government would breach the first amendment. It's one thing for Facebook to offer to remove something that isn't actually illegal, and quite another for the government to punish them for not removing it. The former is a a private company doing what they want with their platform. The latter is the government attempting do control speech.

      Facebook and Zuckerberg can go eat and entire truckload of pre-bagged dicks, but likewise I don't wan

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Cylix ( 55374 )

        They are enjoying protections issued by the government.

        Unfortunately, it is just a blanket protection and it doesn't matter if it is abused.

        • And they should enjoy it. Fundamentally they aren't the ones creating the content. If I don't like a football team I don't go and burn down the stadium they played in.

          • If someone were using a stadium to launch attacks on other people, I would absolutely burn down the stadium.

            Facebook is deliberately a safe haven for people who spew vitriol, hatred, misinformation, lies, and idiocy, simply because it makes money.

            Burn it to the fucking ground.

    • I think the "technical issue" is that Congress thinks it can trust Facebook to do what it says.

    • Here I sit in America, and Americans are upset the government isn't doing enough to punish free citizens for making political recommendations.

  • I mean it's technically correct (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday February 13, 2021 @12:01PM (#61059520)

    The idea of being able to perfectly target these posts on a platform with the volume of Facebook is a fantasy. What they promised was a technical impossibility so technically they are correct when they blame it on "technical issues". :-)

    • Patrick: Is PEBKAC a technical issue?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      While a decent argument, it breaks against

      The "technical issues" meant that, from Election Day on Nov. 3 to the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots to President Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, Facebook was still recommending political groups to its users. Our analysis found that Facebook particularly pushed political groups to more conservative users..

  • We had technical issues: technically, what we told you was a pack of lies.

  • If you're following this meme of not stating the actual issue, but only saying that there was an issue, in a way that implies you just stated the actual issue, without actually saying anything, ... just go all the way to its logical conclusion:

    "Technical issues" was the day before yesterday.
    "Security reasons" was yesterday.
    "Reasons" is today.
    ("Evidence [youtube.com]" is tomorow. ;)

  • I am calling complete 100 percent top grade BS on that. Facebook has the power to ban anyone they want, rapidly. They have the tools, the money, the organization and the willingness to act fast and hard when they want. They just “don wanna” because it would cost them ad money, cost them user data, and some right wing users would leave the platform.

    I can buy that their automated filters only catch 90 percent of FB groups titled “worship Trump attack congress fake news maga stop the ste
  • ... when they do what they promised, ad revenue drops too much.
  • we can't stop showing \ recommending stuff whilsyt people are still willing to pay to push rhat stuff.

  • Unlike past supposed technical issues that had outcomes consistent with Californian politics, this instance seems like it could go the other way. This may actually be a genuine technical issue.

  • Believing Facebook when they say they're going to do something that costs them money while benefiting others, is like believing a hard-core junkie when he says he's going to flush his stash and quit cold turkey. FB is as addicted to giving these recommendations, as they hope their users will be to following them.

    But unlike a heroin addict who should be given help and support and counseling, Facebook should just be taken out back and shot, or whatever the equivalent of that is in the case of a malevolent cor

  • That Facebook doesn't have algorithms to promote content and groups that benefit it and its agenda? Isn't everyone currently being blasted with "content" saying that Section 230 should not be repealed? Are we supposed to assume that a company that runs psychological experiments on unknowing users will in any way abide by its promises?

  • The problem being addressed is the widespread effect of the platform on spreading fringe political views. I'm not sure that "we can't control our platform even when we try" is somehow more comforting than "we're monetizing the radicalization of American politics". Both sound like a pretty good reason for regulation. Whether or not we *ought* to be regulating such things, this doesn't really address the doubts people have about their company.

  • They're going to stretch this out as long as you let them.
    They're hoping it'll be long enough that people just forget about it.

    HOLD THEM TO TASK!
    Start a series of incremental fines, large ones, levied on a daily basis.

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