Skip to main content

'You just have the wrong idea about Facebook': Facebook's chief AI scientist defends the company over Black Lives Matter uproar

* Facebook has faced intense criticism from its own employees and civil rights groups over its response to a post by President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis George Floyd protests. * Facebook's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said on Friday he is "still proud" to work for Facebook and that the social network is a "force for good in popular protest movements." * "The Floyd murder video was published in FB [Facebook], after all," he added. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. A senior Facebook AI scientist came out defending the company on Twitter, amid general employee criticism about the way it has recently handled incendiary posts. Yann LeCun, Facebook's former head of AI research and currently the company's chief AI scientist, responded on Friday to a Twitter user who'd asked if he was still proud to work at Facebook. "Still proud, yes.  I'm trying to be a decent person. You just have the wrong idea about Facebook," LeCun responded. He went further in defending Facebook's role in the Black Lives Matter protests, echoing a talking point by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. LeCun said: "Facebook is a force for good in popular protest movements. Even if the platform can also be used by people we oppose. The Floyd murder video was published in FB, after all." Still proud, yes. I'm trying to be a decent person. You just have the wrong idea about Facebook. Facebook is a force for good in popular protest movements. Even if the platform can also be used by people we oppose. The Floyd murder video was published in FB, after all. — Yann LeCun (@ylecun) June 5, 2020 Zuckerberg reportedly made a similar point during a company-wide call on June 2 to outraged employees, saying that it was important that footage of Floyd's death was posted to Facebook. Cellphone footage of George Floyd being pinned by a police officer with his knee on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes was posted to Facebook on May 25, the same day he died, per a timeline from ABC News. Facebook received considerable backlash after it allowed a post from Donald Trump to remain up on May 29 which incited violence against the George Floyd protesters. Trump's post included the phrase: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." Twitter placed the same post behind a clickthrough block, saying it violated its policy on "glorifying violence." Facebook chose to leave it untouched despite having similar guidelines. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blogpost the decision to leave it up was in part because Trump referred to bringing in the National Guard, which Facebook interpreted as a warning about state action.  The decision prompted outrage both amongst Facebook's employees and among civil rights leaders, and prompted at least one senior engineer to resign in protest. Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout to express their anger last week, and this week a group of the company's content moderators published a letter condemning Facebook's "lack of adequate action" against the president's post. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid
https://bit.ly/2UrdPut

Popular posts from this blog

Bill Gates says the world would need as many as 14 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine to stop the virus

* The world could need as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Bill Gates said on Thursday in a blog post about the race to develop a way to make people immune to the disease. * "We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible," Gates said. * Gates said he had his eyes on eight to 10 promising candidates, adding that healthcare workers and people in low-income countries should be first in line once we find one that works. * While potential vaccines are progressing with historic speed, they're still months, or even years away, and the biggest challenge lies ahead in proving whether they are safe and effective in humans. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Bill Gates believes we may eventually need to produce as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines globally and that we're anywhere from nine months to two years away from making tha...
Read more

The 11 most important details we already know about the PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation video game console set to arrive this year

* The PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation game console that's deep in production, is scheduled to launch during the 2020 holiday season. * As you might expect, the PlayStation 5 is promised to be more powerful than the existing PlayStation 4 — and we've slowly been learning more about the next-gen console's new features since it was first revealed. * So far, Sony has offered a first glimpse at the new console via its new DualSense gamepad, and a tech demo highlighted the technical prowess of the new machine. * Here's everything we know so far about Sony's next-generation PlayStation console. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The PlayStation 5 is almost here. Sony's next-generation PlayStation game console is scheduled to arrive this holiday season, but we already know plenty of details about it right now: how powerful it is, its main features, and we've even gotten a good look at its new gamepad.  Here everything we kno...
Read more

Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque

* Two see-through bathrooms have been installed in public parks in Tokyo. * They are made from "smart glass" designed so people can see how clean they are inside before using them. The glass turns opaque when the bathroom is locked and in use. * The stalls are part of a project that is redoing 17 of the city's public bathrooms with different designers to make them more accessible and appealing. * The goal is to fight assumptions that public toilets are "are dark, dirty, smelly, and scary," said the nonprofit foundation behind the project. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Tokyo has installed two see-through bathroom facilities in public parks, allowing people to see how clean they are before deciding to use them, at which point they turn opaque. The bathrooms are made of colored "smart glass," which turns opaque when the stalls are locked, said Shigeru Ban, the architect behind the designs. You can see how it works her...
Read more