Facebook fumbles in its fight against fake news and hate speech

If we rely on Facebook's action, the scandals of the last few months are now a thing of the past for the social network. In early July, it exceeded $ 200, a record for the company that has propelled Mark Zuckerberg to the rank of third richest person in the world. So much so that the boss of Facebook seems to have forgotten that his remarks are always scrutinized by a magnifying glbad

In an interview with the site "Recode" broadcast Wednesday, the CEO of the social network to 2.2 billion users stated that Holocaust denial "deeply shocked" him personally, but that it was not "the role of Facebook to remove such comments". "There are things that some people are wrong about. I do not think it's intentional, "he added.

A statement that provoked an uproar from badociations such as the Anti-Defamation League, forcing Mark Zuckerberg to clarify his remarks a few hours later. "I absolutely did not want to defend the intention of the Holocaust deniers. Our goal with fake news is not to prevent someone from saying something wrong – but to prevent the spread of misinformation about our services, "he said.

Better Link fake news »and violence

The episode is a task as the company tries to put forward its new efforts to fight misinformation on its site. At the time the interview was published, a meeting between the international press and the Facebook teams was held in Menlo Park to highlight the company's progress and communicate on new measures.

The firm announced to start remove misleading information that may lead to physical violence. So far, the company suppressed explicit calls for violence, but it did not take into account the more subtle cases where violence does not stem from clear statements but from the dissemination of false information. But they have played a central role in the attacks on ethnic minorities in several countries in recent months, including Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka.

The company, however, remained vague on the deployment . Tessa Lyons, the Integrity Manager of the News Feed, just said that the company would start with Sri Lanka and that implementation would be complicated by the "difficulty in predicting whether a publication will provoke violence". Facebook intends to rely on civil society to bring back situations where fake news shared on its site exacerbate existing tensions.

Reduce distribution

In the majority of cases, however, the platform is content to reduce distribution of problematic words instead of removing them. "We want people to be allowed to publish polemical things. We only remove content that explicitly violates our standards, "said Ross Kirschner, the company's director of public policy.

The company decided not to ban the US site InfoWars despite its focus on conspiracy theories but has reduced its "reach" by about 30%. The same logic applies to the denial of the Holocaust

"Holocaust denial is illegal in a number of countries such as Germany, where we withdraw these words. In the United States, this is not the case so we do not suppress them but we treat them as misinformation. It's different from an attack on a specific group of people, which goes against our standards and will be withdrawn, "said Tessa Lyons.

The complexity of the task is driving the company more and more. to want to resurrect a Facebook centered on the personal life. "What Facebook offers unique is to help you find people and connect with them. The information is not at the heart of that, "said Rachel Whetsone, vice president of the company in charge of communication. Since January, the total amount of news content in the newsfeed has decreased by about 30%, said John Hegeman, the director of the News Feed.

Anais Moutot