Skip to main content

Facebook has bent its hate speech and misinformation policies around Trump since before he was president, report says

* A Washington Post report claims Facebook has steadily weakened its hate speech and misinformation policies to adapt to Donald Trump. * The report says the company began bending its policies in 2015, when then-candidate Trump posted a video saying he would ban Muslims from entering the US. * CEO Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly in favor of taking action against the post, but sources said Facebook executive Joel Kaplan talked him out of it. * Facebook's approach to Donald Trump's posts over the past month have led to a major boycott from advertisers including Coca Cola, Verizon, and Unilever. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. An explosive new report from The Washington Post claims Facebook has weakened its hate speech and misinformation policies because of Donald Trump's ascent to power. In 2015, when Trump was a presidential candidate, he posted a video advocating a ban on Muslims entering the US. The video provoked outrage internally, the report said. Sources told The Post that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in favor of taking action against the post but was persuaded not to by Joel Kaplan, Facebook's senior vice president of global public policy and former aide to President George W. Bush. Sources told The Post this decision informally shaped decision-making until 2016, when the company changed its policies so that posts from politicians would have certain exemptions from community guidelines because they were "newsworthy." As Trump's political power solidified, sources told the Post, the company increasingly made policy decisions to appease Washington. In 2019 the company announced it wouldn't fact-check posts by politicians, and Kaplan reportedly pushed for the platform's algorithm to be more lenient on right-wing content, following accusations that Facebook penalized conservative voices. The Post spoke to a dozen current and former Facebook employees and viewed previously unreported documents.  "The Washington Post's insinuation that we developed policies intended to please the Trump administration is wrong," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider. "While many Republicans think we should do one thing and many Democrats want us to the do just the opposite, our job is to create one common set of rules that applies equally to everyone. We don't believe Twitter, YouTube, Facebook or any technology company should determine what words people should or shouldn't see from their elected leaders in a democracy," they added. Recently, Facebook's approach to Trump has brought it under fire. In late May, Trump posted on Facebook and Twitter about the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, saying he was bringing in the National Guard. "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," the post said. Twitter placed the tweet behind a clickthrough block alerting users that it broke the platform's rules on "glorifying violence." Facebook, however, decided to leave the post untouched, prompting rage from its own employees and civil rights groups. One June 17, a group of six nonprofit groups called on companies to withdraw advertising from Facebook in a campaign called Stop Hate For Profit. Major companies including Coca Cola, Verizon, and Unliver have joined the boycott. On Friday, June 26, Zuckerberg announced the company was introducing two new polices. First, it will ban ads saying people from any specific race, ethnicity, nationality, caste, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration origin are a threat. Second, it will label "newsworthy" posts if they break its guidelines, similar to Twitter. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to travel during the coronavirus outbreak
https://bit.ly/2CSu2D1

Popular posts from this blog

How to enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to hear text read aloud

* You can enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to have written content read aloud. * Both Kindle content and your personal documents can utilize the text-to-speech feature. * Text-to-speech inputs are also available for languages other than English and can be downloaded via the progress bar within the book itself. * Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories. If you are vision-impaired or simply want to hear your book or document aloud rather than reading the text, Kindle Fire has a text-to-speech feature that will translate the written words to audio so you can listen aloud. Best of all, text-to-speech is not only available for Kindle books but also for many (though not all) personal text files. Turning on text-to-speech is easy and should only take a few seconds. Books in the Kindle store will even notify you if the capability is available before you purchase, though the feature must be turned on within the book or document itse...
Read more

The NSA warned staff that smartphone apps can track them. Here are their recommendations to avoid tracking.

* The NSA warned members of the US military and intelligence community this week that their smartphone apps could be tracking them and put their security at risk. * In guidance issued Tuesday, the agency noted that many apps make use of WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth to collect cellphone location information, which is typically sold to advertisers or third parties. * The agency recommended specific steps for staff to reduce their data exposure, like restricting app permissions and reducing web browsing on their smartphones. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The National Security Administration warned staff that the amount of data their smartphones track could pose a national security risk in new guidance issued Tuesday. The guidance highlights a practice that's common across Silicon Valley products but rarely understood by consumers: smartphones are constantly gathering information on users' location, through a combination of apps, the smartphone's o...
Read more

All the coolest features of every Tesla vehicle ever made or unveiled, ranked (TSLA)

* Tesla's vehicles are and always have been crammed with great ideas. * These range from touchscreen interfaces to innovative battery designs to staggering acceleration. * I've driven or experienced every vehicle Tesla has ever sold or intends to sell in the future. * Here are all my favorite features, ranked. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In about two decades, Tesla has done what everyone in the auto industry thought was impossible: create an all-electric brand that could sell hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Tesla could have done that in a boring or modest way, developing  the equivalent of an electric VW Beetle. Instead, Tesla made fantastically compelling cars that are fast, look amazing, and are packed with features. Here's a rundown of all my favorites, ranked from bottom to top: FOLLOW US: On Facebook for more car and transportation content! Tesla has been in business for 17 years. In that period of time, it's consisten...
Read more