A Facebook Bug Mistakenly Elevated Misinformation, Russian State Media for Months (theverge.com) 40
The Verge reports:
A group of Facebook engineers identified a "massive ranking failure" that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to potential "integrity risks" over the past six months, according to an internal report on the incident obtained by The Verge.
The engineers first noticed the issue last October, when a sudden surge of misinformation began flowing through the News Feed, notes the report, which was shared inside the company last week. Instead of suppressing posts from repeat misinformation offenders that were reviewed by the company's network of outside fact-checkers, the News Feed was instead giving the posts distribution, spiking views by as much as 30 percent globally. Unable to find the root cause, the engineers watched the surge subside a few weeks later and then flare up repeatedly until the ranking issue was fixed on March 11th.
In addition to posts flagged by fact-checkers, the internal investigation found that, during the bug period, Facebook's systems failed to properly demote probable nudity, violence, and even Russian state media the social network recently pledged to stop recommending in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine. The issue was internally designated a level-one SEV, or site event — a label reserved for high-priority technical crises, like Russia's ongoing block of Facebook and Instagram.
The engineers first noticed the issue last October, when a sudden surge of misinformation began flowing through the News Feed, notes the report, which was shared inside the company last week. Instead of suppressing posts from repeat misinformation offenders that were reviewed by the company's network of outside fact-checkers, the News Feed was instead giving the posts distribution, spiking views by as much as 30 percent globally. Unable to find the root cause, the engineers watched the surge subside a few weeks later and then flare up repeatedly until the ranking issue was fixed on March 11th.
In addition to posts flagged by fact-checkers, the internal investigation found that, during the bug period, Facebook's systems failed to properly demote probable nudity, violence, and even Russian state media the social network recently pledged to stop recommending in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine. The issue was internally designated a level-one SEV, or site event — a label reserved for high-priority technical crises, like Russia's ongoing block of Facebook and Instagram.
A Profitable Bug. (Score:5, Interesting)
Given all of the other shape-shifting that seems to go with the coffer flow...was this a technical bug, a political bug, or merely the profit knob being turned to 11..
Re: A Profitable Bug. (Score:2)
I always thought Fuckenburg was a space alien.
There are no air quotes big enough (Score:3, Insightful)
You might be wondering why the company would buy advertisements when they know the actual audience seeing them so small. You have to understand the ad industry goes both ways. At every major corporation that buys ads is a marketing department in charge of those ad buys.
Now ask yourself if your job was in marketing and your job was writing copy for advertisements that run on Facebook would you go to your boss and tell them that those Facebook ads were useless?
This is one of those problems you run into with capitalism. Specifically this is low level crony capitalism. Normally the solution here is to have the government step in and force increased transparency. But we stopped properly regulating our economy sometime ago. When you don't do the basic maintenance that the machinery of capitalism needs this is the result
When no one was looking, (Score:2)
Lex Luthor mistakenly took forty cakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Jeezus, you are a one-trick pony.
Re: (Score:2)
Bug or Feature? (Score:4, Informative)
I think we know what we're all thinking.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm thinking that Facebook is just a large series of bugs wrapped in a web site. Not something to be fixed but just unraveled and thrown out.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, "Go fast and break things." There's no imperative to fix any bug UNLESS it costs the Zucker money.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should you unravel it? Just throw it out.
Re: (Score:2)
I think this covers it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
That mase it much clearer for me, thanks!
Re: Bug or Feature? (Score:1)
The root cause is censorship (Score:2, Informative)
a: readers have access to alternative points of view and
b: you don't have essentially an AI per reader to control what that reader sees.
You may now return to your officially endorsed media.
...and nobody noticed... (Score:2)
FB doesn't care (Score:5, Informative)
As long as they increase thier advertising revenue, ole zuck would throw his country or family under the bus for ad revenue
Re: (Score:2)
They call it "Driving Engagement". Anything that enrages a lot of people is fantastic. More eyeballs on the ads!
Re: (Score:2)
"Mistakes" that run consistently in one direction (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It's called manufacturing outrage. Post something that your target demographic hates and they will be encouraged to go out and burn something down.
Re: (Score:2)
It does by your definition. You seem to cast everything left of you as 'left wing' which really only leaves you one wing to be on.
Re: (Score:2)
Zuckerberg = billionaire, Putin = billionaire. (Score:3)
That "bug" has some interesting timing (Score:3)
Facebook claims the bug was introduced in 2019, but did nothing for roughly a year.
According to the article, the bug started causing the newsfeed to promote and spread misinformation including Russian propaganda in October of 2021.
In early November 2021, Russian forces began building up along the Ukraine boarder.
Then, Facebook's engineers couldn't find and fix the bug until March 11th; about a week after Russia blocked access to Facebook.
These are all easily verifiable facts. Draw your own conclusions, but the timing is very odd.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I don't know. You are free to publish your stuff on the former alleged president's new media outlet...run by his former congressional lapdog, Nunes. I hear they cater to your crowd.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if it was a bug and that's not just a cover story... the fact that nothing was done about it until it didn't matter any longer tells you what Facebook's real policy was.
And that policy was, "Spread Russian propaganda".
Love this (Score:2)
Ri-i-i-ght (Score:1)
A BUG? (Score:2)
Just askin'.
That's not a bug, that's a feature. (Score:2)
... a very profitable feature for Facebook.
Isn't Facebook itself the bug? (Score:2)
Well, that's one way to deflect criticism. (Score:1)
Yeah, yeah. That's it. That's the ticket.
Don't blame us. You can't expect us to get everything right.
In fact, you should pity us. We're the real victims.
Well... (Score:1)