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* Reporter with the Marshall Project…
Here's how it often plays out: a young person is shot and killed, and a year later a birthday or event anniversary pops up on Facebook. A rival group may do something disrespectful with the post, and the deceased's friends take action.
— Lakeidra Chavis (@lakeidrachavis) October 26, 2021
We understand the roles that social media played in the capitol attack and on vaccine misinformation. Why do we not frame conflicts that lead to gun violence with the same lens?
— Lakeidra Chavis (@lakeidrachavis) October 26, 2021
* CBS 2 recently aired a story about young carjackers. Here’s an excerpt from their talk with “David” who is 14 years old…
He says getting the gun was also simple.
‘David’: “People on Facebook and stuff. They sell guns.”
Sargent: “So you were able to buy a weapon off Facebook?”
‘David’: “Yes.”
Sargent: “And do you find a lot of kids your age do that?”
‘David’: “Yes.”
* Sun-Times…
A St. Louis-to-Chicago gun trafficking network began with a relationship that was kindled on an online sneaker marketplace, federal authorities say.
Two men who met on a Facebook specialty sneaker group started trading guns for marijuana about a year ago, authorities say.
Over the past week, Chicago police and ATF agents arrested those men and their supplier, a 71-year-old Missouri retiree who’d traveled the country to buy weapons at gun shows, according to affidavits filed in federal court by an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Behind the scenes, Facebook programmed the algorithm that decides what people see in their news feeds to use the reaction emoji as signals to push more emotional and provocative content — including content likely to make them angry. Starting in 2017, Facebook’s ranking algorithm treated emoji reactions as five times more valuable than “likes,” internal documents reveal. The theory was simple: Posts that prompted lots of reaction emoji tended to keep users more engaged, and keeping users engaged was the key to Facebook’s business.
Facebook’s own researchers were quick to suspect a critical flaw. Favoring “controversial” posts — including those that make users angry — could open “the door to more spam/abuse/clickbait inadvertently,” a staffer, whose name was redacted, wrote in one of the internal documents. A colleague responded, “It’s possible.”
The warning proved prescient. The company’s data scientists confirmed in 2019 that posts that sparked angry reaction emoji were disproportionately likely to include misinformation, toxicity and low-quality news.
That means Facebook for three years systematically amped up some of the worst of its platform, making it more prominent in users’ feeds and spreading it to a much wider audience. The power of the algorithmic promotion undermined the efforts of Facebook’s content moderators and integrity teams, who were fighting an uphill battle against toxic and harmful content. […]
When Facebook finally set the weight on the angry reaction to zero, users began to get less misinformation, less “disturbing” content and less “graphic violence,” company data scientists found. As it turned out, after years of advocacy and pushback, there wasn’t a trade-off after all. According to one of the documents, users’ level of activity on Facebook was unaffected.
* Related…
* Misinformation, violence and social media: Five things we learned from the Facebook files
* Facebook’s misinformation and violence problems are worse in India
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 11:15 am
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Blaming FB for societies ills doesn’t hold any water when these things were happening decades before Zuck was born.
No this is a classic blame game and FB is the target. Corporate media has an agenda here because they’ve lost to the social media companies and politicians will blame anyone but themselves.
Joke
Comment by BigBoi Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 11:57 am
=== Blaming FB for societies ills doesn’t hold any water when these things were happening decades before…===
… like insurrections?
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 11:57 am
thought this was going to be about hip hop vs. house, and the violence from the music industry which many blame on the artists but read today that the head of music for YouTube is really the issue. circle of violence.
Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 11:58 am
I deleted the toxic garbage can of a site back in 2017 when it became clear it had been used as a Russian disinformation vector during the 2016 election cycle.
No matter how much you talk yourself into your “need” to keep in touch with people you didn’t even care about in high school, distant relatives you’ll never see again, groups covering subjects that are covered elsewhere on the web, etc., you don’t need the site for anything. I’ve never seen more people talk themselves into something so unnecessary to enjoy life than I do with facebook.
It’s like crack cocaine for some people over 35, but there’s not actually any withdrawal when you put the pipe down, instead you feel better without that detritus in your head.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:02 pm
=== No this is a classic blame game and FB is the target. Corporate media has an agenda ===
That you, Mark?
Facebook is the third-largest media company in the world, preceded by Walt Disney and Comcast, and followed by AT&T and News Corp.
Comment by Thomas Paine Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:14 pm
== No this is a classic blame game and FB is the target. Corporate media has an agenda here because they’ve lost to the social media companies and politicians will blame anyone but themselves. ==
You realize that you just played the same “blame game”, right? It is worth looking into how Facebook operates when it is being used to traffic guns (and children). It is also worth understanding how their algorithm treats violence and violent threats. How is this controversial?
Comment by supplied_demand Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:16 pm
===Blaming FB for societies ills doesn’t hold any water when these things were happening decades before Zuck
No one is indicating that the problem is only Facebook’s or even social media, but social media and especially Facebook exacerbates the problems. A similar example is the racists who organize on Facebook. Racism has always existed, but Facebook makes recruitment far more efficient.
Also, murder/shootings were at all time lows just a few years ago so it’s not like there has been a continuous climb to where we are now and in fact, other crime is down.
Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:21 pm
Ah yes, the Russian Facebook controversy. As Glenn Greenwald has reported extensively over the last few years, that was one of the lies of the decade. Right up there with the NSA kangaroo courts.
Comment by BigBoi Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:22 pm
===As Glenn Greenwald has reported extensively over the last few years
Do they let Matt Hale have internet access in the federal pokie?
Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:24 pm
===Russian Facebook controversy. As Glenn Greenwald has reported===
Thank you. Always appreciate these days clarifying things.
From PBS NewsHour, March 2021
===That report, from University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Young Mie Kim, found that Russia-linked social media accounts are posting about the same divisive issues — race relations, gun laws and immigration — as they did in 2016, when the Kremlin polluted American voters’ feeds with messages about the presidential election. Facebook has since removed those accounts as well.
Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that Russia was still waging “information warfare” with an army of fictional social media personas and bots that spread disinformation.
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in U.S. elections.===
Siding with Russia over the FBI is very Trumpian.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:28 pm
What an incredibly divisive comment, ArchPundit.
I present the reporting of a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who broke one of the biggest stories of the last few decades and you counter with a convicted KKK member.
Have some tact.
Comment by BigBoi Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:29 pm
Where did I state the Russians didn’t try to interfere with our elections? As has been reliable reported, the campaign had zero impact on the 2016 election.
Comment by BigBoi Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:32 pm
Yeah, Glenn was his lawyer. But be a victim. Glenn has a long history of defending white supremacists and literally was Hale’s lawyer.
Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:34 pm
- BigBoi -
Where are the decades of insurrections?
If you don’t think FB contributed or Russia had a hand in at least pushing as the FBI contends… like I said, thanks.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:35 pm
Because Facebook
Comment by Simply Sayin' Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:36 pm
===Ah yes, the Russian Facebook controversy. As Glenn Greenwald has reported extensively over the last few years, that was one of the lies of the decade.
You do know Facebook actually provided evidence that the Russians used Facebook. So what do you think Glenn has shown?
Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:36 pm
No doubt the Facebook algorithmic profit enterprise fuels the most violent messages with likes and shares. Freedom to speak is one thing, freedom from violence quite another. If we allow Facebook to continue as is for another six years and the next presidential campaign, I can’t imagine the anger and violence-inciting content that will be shared. Time for major reforms.
Comment by West wing Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:37 pm
==As has been reliable reported, the campaign had zero impact on the 2016 election. ==
Then why did they run ads again on Facebook in 2020? If Facebook isn’t capable of influencing people’s decision making, why do corporations keep spending more and more money on it (as their revenue numbers show)? Their entire business model is built on the idea that you can show ads to their users to get them to engage in a desirable activity.
Comment by supplied_demand Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:40 pm
===Glenn Greenwald===
Go back to Facebook.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:42 pm
Initially trash talk television sold anything and everything during commercial breaks. Combative remarks, audience boos and cheers—- now there is Facebook. The FB platform is available day and night. Profits go to creators and advertisers. The fallout often results in conflict, violence and retaliation throughout communities.
No solutions in sight. Is it necessary to share every thought, feeling and emotion with the universe. Maybe not.
Comment by Rudy’s teeth Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:51 pm
If people really want to know how to address gun violence take a hard look at ghost guns, and talk to people on the streets, not the violence interceptors or any of the anti violence groups. Today’s new rage is the ability to create ghost guns. Very simple buy different parts of a gun from various online websites, once they come in you build your gun, heck even print out a serial number (aka ghost). Then you can go on the streets and shoot at whoever you like toss the gun and it can’t be traced back to the websites.
Add on to the fact that these kids don’t care about life because nobody cared about them, so they are angry.
Comment by westside man Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 12:56 pm
I have taked to a few Chicago Police Officers. They talk about gang bangers vilifying each other on Twitter more than other platforms.
What about Twitter? Twitter allows more threats of violence and more filth on it than Facebook - but is not nearly as scrutinized.
Twitter allows adult pornography on a regular accounts (Facebook does not). Facebook has removed more child pornography, per capita, than has Twitter.
Somehow Jack Dorsey and Twitter are less subject to media scrutiny than Zuckerberg and Facebook. (And, yes, reporters tend to prefer Twitter.)
Comment by Nick From Downstate Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 1:08 pm
Facebook is the most insidious thing foisted on our society in the last fifty years.
Comment by JP Altgeld Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 1:35 pm
“BigBoi”
Is….is that you, Glen?
Comment by Blue Bayou Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 2:01 pm
I was just reading an AP article about Facebook and COVID vaccine mis and disinformation. Interesting how Facebook “struggled” and continues to struggle with it but yet Twitter has handled it just fine. Twitters just about enjoyable…Facebook on the other hand is just awful.
Comment by MZ Tuesday, Oct 26, 21 @ 2:42 pm