Facebook moves to image rather than apologize for malicious content: report

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg reportedly approved a new internal effort last month to defend the tech giant’s reputation on user newsfeeds, which would be a sea change in policy amid criticism of the spread of disinformation on social networks.

The New York Times first reported on Tuesday that Zuckerberg signed the effort, called Project Amplify, in August. That plan included proposals to elevate the positive stories on Facebook in User Feeds, the most popular section of the site, including posts written by Facebook itself. The post, citing people familiar with the project, said some senior company officials were shocked at the idea.

The Amplify project has since been tested in three US cities, the Times added. Company spokesman Joe Osborne told the newspaper that any positive post was part of a “test for an information unit” and “clearly marked as coming from Facebook,” linking them to accountability programs. business of other companies.

Osborne later said on twitter that there had been “zero changes” in the way Facebook’s news feed ranked posts.

But the project is moving away from Facebook’s past efforts to simply apologize for the problems stemming from disinformation and hate speech. Zuckerberg himself has become the public face of these efforts, apologizing for the Russian influence campaigns that proliferated on the site during the 2016 election and pledging to increase transparency.

Tech news site The Information first reported in May that Zuckerberg wanted to transform from crisis manager to tech innovator and spent 2021 highlighting Facebook’s advancements rather than explaining its drawbacks.

Yet the company has faced a deluge of criticism, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting executives to launch Project Amplify.

The Times story follows a series of explosive Wall Street Journal reports last week based on internal documents alleging Facebook downplayed Instagram’s negative effects on young girls and failed to take harsh action even though he has seen misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine spread across his platform.

Facebook vehemently opposed the characterizations, saying the Journal had published an “unbalanced view” of its policies.

“It challenges the motivations and hard work of thousands of researchers, policy experts and engineers at Facebook who strive to improve the quality of our products and understand their wider impact (positive and negative ), ”Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president for global affairs, wrote in a blog post this weekend.