Weekly New/Digital Media (40)

Civil rights groups urge Facebook to fix 'racially biased' moderation system


People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City on 14 January 2016.












https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/18/facebook-moderation-racial-bias-black-lives-matter

Summary:
"A coalition of more than 70 social and racial justice organizations urged Facebook to adopt reforms that would better target abusive content and harassment" 
It is said that black lives matter movment posts are targeted and taken down yet other abusive and racisit content isn't being tackled, this bias system is now being challenged. 
Signed by 70 organisations the letter has been posted to facebook demanding change on how they tackle this abusive content too. 
Both censorship and harassment need to be targeted by facebook, to which facebook replied with a lenghty letter, authored by Kaplan, outlines its existing policies in detail and largely failed to commit to act on the recommendations.
Key facts/opinions:(quoted)


  • “Activists in the Movement for Black Lives have routinely reported the takedown of images discussing racism and during protests, with the justification that it violates Facebook’s Community Standards,” the groups wrote in a letter on Wednesday to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and director of global policy Joel Kaplan. “At the same time, harassment and threats directed at activists based on their race, religion and sexual orientation is thriving on Facebook.”
  • Co-signed by a coalition of more than 70 social and racial justice organizations, 
  • The corporation has repeatedly been accused of censorship in recent months, including of users critical of Donald Trump, of historic war photos, of citizens live-streaming encounters with police, of journalists who expose racism and of famous artwork with nudity.
  • Facebook’s content moderation challenges also extend to its role in spreading fake news and its difficulties regulating live videos that feature violence.
  • “People turn to Facebook to document human rights abuses and police brutality,” Suleiman added.
  • Sihame Assbague, a journalist and activist in France, said users speaking out against racism regularly have their Facebook accounts censored and that her page has been taken down on numerous occasions.
  • Black employees accounted for just 3% of senior US leadership, according to 2016 figures.

My opinion:

Facebook are having huge huge problems with censorship and harrasment and i do believe they have the money to deal with it so they should. This is just another example, facebook i mean, abusing its power and potentailly is trying to use it 'opinion leader' status to target adiences and almost drip feed them ideologies as marxism suggests, but in this day and age this abuse shouldn't exist so facebook better sort out its ways asap or else i believe they should actually be shutdown (wouldn't ever happen but still)

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