In light of the hundreds of thousands of pages of Facebook documents expected to leak in the coming days, Facebook has gone on the offensive.
This is the second round of stories slamming Facebook in the public’s eyes. Recent testimony given by a former Facebook employee Frances Haugen showed the company is aware of problems with the site, including hate speech and human trafficking, as well as its influence on the mental health of young females.
According to
Yahoo Finance, John Pinette, Vice President of Communications claimed on Facebook Newsroom Twitter account that “30+ journalists are finishing up a coordinated series of articles based on thousands of pages of leaked documents. We hear that to get the docs, outlets had to agree to the conditions and a schedule laid down by the PR team that worked on earlier leaked docs.”
The report also revealed that after Guy Rosen’s blog article disputing allegations that the social media giant doesn’t detect hate speech, this news comes as no surprise.
As Rosen points out in his piece, the prominence of this type of material on Facebook has decreased by approximately 50% over the previous three quarters.
Leaked document reveals ‘terrorists,’ ‘haters,’ or ‘crimes’
Fox Business News reported that on Tuesday,
The Intercept published a reproduction of a snapshot with more than 4,000 groups and individuals categorized as “terrorist,” “hate,” “crime,” “military social movements,” or “violent non-state actors” by the social media giant.
The Intercept’s documentation shows how the social media platform’s content moderators use praise, support, and representation moderation guidelines to decide which posts to remove and who to penalize.
Several recommendations have been made by the Facebook Oversight Board since February regarding the DOI list, including making it public.
The Oversight Board, which is expected to be established in 2020, will have the authority to issue binding rulings regarding Facebook’s business practices.
Earlier this week, Haugen confirmed accepting an invitation from the Oversight Board to discuss what she learned from her time at Facebook.
“Facebook has lied to the board repeatedly, and I am looking forward to sharing the truth with them,” Haugen posted on Twitter, as quoted by Fox Business News.
