Facebook’s Systems Promoted Violence Against Rohingya in Myanmar
amnestyusa.org
amnestyusa.org
"In 2014, Meta attempted to support an anti-hate initiative known as ‘Panzagar’ or ‘flower speech’ by creating a sticker pack for Facebook users to post in response to content which advocated violence or discrimination. The stickers bore messages such as, ‘Think before you share’ and ‘Don’t be the cause of violence.’
However, activists soon noticed that the stickers were having unintended consequences. Facebook’s algorithms interpreted the use of these stickers as a sign that people were enjoying a post and began promoting them. Instead of diminishing the number of people who saw a post advocating hatred, the stickers actually made the posts more visible."
If that would be the only thing they're doing that wouldn't be so much of a problem. The main issue is that those companies are massive amplifiers of those violent tendencies.
And as long it doesn't hurt their bottom line or results in bad press they tend to give less than a shit.
Spam is by definition messages that the recipient does not want to receive.
That is not a spam issue, that is a censorship issue.
Also when Google sends something to spam you can still read it. What "Amnesty International" is asking for here is making it impossible for people to read what some people say.
Should we abandon honesty and accuracy if one side of an issue is genocide? Let me rephrase that: should I assume anyone speaking out against genocide is twisting words to their breaking point, and I shouldn't believe a word they're saying? Do you see the problem with this approach?
I find it incredibly dishonest to use spam-filters as a cheap trap that every non-spam message is "promoted", so that any usable messaging platform can be accused of "promoting" messages someone wants censored.
I propose the following: since opinion is split on this issue, using the (apparently incredibly broad) "promoting" will mislead a large segment of readers. And even those that won't be misled won't be any wiser, since to them, not having messages dropped as spam and algorithmically boosting a story so 90% of all Facebook users see it are both "promotion".
So instead of saying "promotion", say "treated the same as any other non-spam message". Unless you were in fact trying to mislead your readers, you would welcome this chance to be more accurate and descriptive.