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BBC:
A Facebook engineer has quit the firm, saying they "can no longer stomach" being part of an organisation "profiting off hate".
Ashok Chandwaney is the latest employee to go public with concerns about how the company deals with hate speech.
The engineer added it was "choosing to be on the wrong side of history".
Facebook responded by saying it had removed millions of hate-related posts. Another of its ex-engineers has also come to its defence.
The thrust of the post by Ashok Chandwaney - who uses "they" and "them" as personal pronouns - is that Facebook moves quickly to solve certain problems, but when it comes to dealing with hate speech, it is more interested in PR than implementing real change.
Can [or should] Facebook successfully purge its platform of speech it considers harmful?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday September 11 2020, @12:55AM (1 child)
It's not that I like or feel some great urge to defend Facebook, I think they are a pox on society in general. That said I have serious doubt, as noted, that they are profiteering from hate or hatemongering -- unless you have a very wide definition on what constitutes as hate and profit etc in which case it could be pretty much anything and then it would just be ridiculous.
If radicalization is the issue then that is as far as I am concerned another issue. In that way I'm sure that Facebook can act as some kind of gateway or point of exposure. Even tho I don't think it's where the "interesting" things happen. I just don't think there are many advert dollars in hatemongering on Facebook or in general as the corporations with money are not that interested in having their precious image tarnished by such content. But sure it would be interesting to see some kind of actual breakdown, even tho I don't think Facebook will or would ever provide one to us.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @02:48AM
It is difficult to monetize racial grievance unless you use a very, very broad definition of bias. At this point in time we have reached about the maximum possible definition of bias, and it has been monetized with alacrity by bias counselors, pundits, and all those who make bank on selling the idea that we're all biased and that that can ever change. Look at what the ADL and SPLC do on a regular basis, with their interpreting absolutely every mishap and crime that ever occurs to a non-white, non-male person as a HATE CRIME!!! Their entire existence as organizations depends on priming that primal pump every six months or so.
In other words, it's a scam. Whenever the Sierra Club or Greenpeace officers in DC feel they need a raise to afford that cute summer home on the Chesapeake, they float stories in the media about some overwrought climate disaster. Whenever the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists needs to rake in cash to meet their bottom line, they pick some random tidbit in the world news and ADJUST THEIR CLOCK CLOSER TO MIDNIGHT!!!
Washington DC delenda est.