Facebook Whistleblower: "There Were Conflicts of Interest" In How FB Dealt With the Spread of Hate & Misinformation

By

 Looks like being a social media platform "empowered" by politicians to be the gatekeeper of "good information" can be problematic when profits are on the line:

The identity of the Facebook whistleblower who released tens of thousands of pages of internal research and documents — leading to a firestorm for the social media company in recent weeks — was revealed on "60 Minutes" Sunday night as Frances Haugen.

The 37-year-old former Facebook product manager who worked on civic integrity issues at the company says the documents show that Facebook knows its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation, and that the company has tried to hide that evidence.

"The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money," Haugen told "60 Minutes."

"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelly quoted one internal Facebook (FB) document as saying: "We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world."

The lesson, people: Doing bad things (or allowing bad things to happen) is usually cheaper/more profitable than doing good things. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Actresses Who Should Be Considered For A Wonder Woman Movie

By
Image
For being DC Comic's most recognizable female character, WW has been given the cinematic shaft for a long time. We've seen two incarnations of Lois Lane and countless Bat-groupies, but not one decent pitch for the Amazon in the big screen. And we're talking about a character who made armored underwear cool waaay before anyone heard of Princess Leia. So here's one humble man's suggestion for any future casting of the Wonder Woman movie. I really have three rules for casting: she has to be at least 5'10", under 45 and attractive enough to pass for a princess. Sandrine Holt - Age: 36, Height: 5'10", Relevant Movie/TV Roles: Resident Evil: Apocalypse & Mutant X Pros : She's played both a (doomed) reporter and a person with superpowers, so if she can play both, she's a shoe-in. Plus she's probably the least-known actress on this list, so they can two movies out of her cheap. Cons : While D.C. isn't as star-crazy as Marvel when it co...
Read more

5 Actresses Who Deserve a Bigger Break

By
Image
Being the avid movie watcher that I am, I've noticed that more than one talented actress has been passed over for other talent. And by "talent," I mean, "sex tapes that 'accidentally' made it to the Internet." Well, here's one man's humble attempt to rectify the situation. The following ladies are not only talented, but beautiful. Hollywood: get off your ass and give these women more roles. DANIELLE FISHEL Noticeable TV/Movie Appearances: Boy Meets World; both National Lampoon's Dorm Dazes The delightful Ms. Fishel has the distinction of having the weirdest named ever associated with a smart-yet-hot character (or maybe I'm the only one who has a problem saying "Topanga!" whilst in the throes of passion) as well as participating in the death of the National Lampoon Series (I personally thought it died with Chevy Chase's career; who knew?). If you were to use her IMBD page as a reference, the only real fault people seem to hav...
Read more