Mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan. Photo: Samuel Corum / Getty Images.
Buzzfeed has an excellent piece this morning compiling reports from inside of Facebook. Employee accounts, both former and current, paint a dark picture at Facebook. The company has wrestled with their own employees for years now, with most of the tension coming from Mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan. Employees don’t like how upper management has stepped in to overrule decisions the rest of the team has made to limit hate speech, violence, and political divisions on Facebook. Employees want the company to be more neutral, Facebook leadership continues to pull it to the right.
“I’ve grown more disillusioned about our company and the role we play in society.”
– Facebook employee of over 8 years, speaking anonymously.
We’ve covered Joel Kaplan at Leaf and Core before. He’s Facebook’s VP of Global Policy. Kaplan’s bias has been behind some of Facebook’s most divisive and harmful decisions. This includes blocking measures that would have potentially stopped the U.S. Capitol insurrection, which Facebook played a majority role in. Kaplan also blocked a measure made to increase interaction across the political spectrum, exposing liberals and conservatives to each other to help shrink the political divide. Simply put, the conflict that divide creates is profitable. Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg want our sharp political divide to stay.
Facebook’s Internal War
Joel Kaplan sat behind Brett Kavanaugh with friends and supporters of the accused rapist at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Photo: Jim Bourg, Reuters.
“Integrity teams are facing increasing barriers to building safeguards. … We’ve known for over a year now that our recommendation systems can very quickly lead users down the path to conspiracy theories and groups. … We were willing to act only *after* things had spiraled into a dire state.”
– Facebook researcher who left their job at the company over bias and promotion of violence.
It’s a long read, but I highly recommend you sit down this Sunday afternoon and hear what current and former Facebook employees have to say about Facebook. Their warnings show a company that will do anything to make money, including protecting their most violent users.
“White supremacy is an ideology; so is anarchism. Neither view is immutable, nor should either be beyond scrutiny. The idea that our content ranking decisions should be balanced on a scale from right to left is impracticable … and frankly can be dangerous, as one side of that scale actively challenges core democratic institutions and fails to recognize the results of a free and fair election.”
– A former Facebook employee who left after the U.S. Election
Head over to Buzzfeed News to read the full report by Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman. It details how Facebook has changed rules to benefit right-wing ideals, including far-right bigotry, conspiracy theories, and hate. It’s an excellent look behind the curtain of a company that is increasingly the center of our political discourse.
Source: Ryan Mac, Craig Silverman, Buzzfeed News