Facebook finds itself dragged into border controversy – By Harper Neidig (The Hill) / July 5 2019
Facebook is being dragged into the scandal surrounding a secret group of border patrol agents who shared racist and sexist content on its platform targeting migrants and several members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Democrats are demanding that Facebook hand over posts from the group and enforce its community standards against the members.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday requesting that the company preserve the records from the group and turn them over to the committee ahead of a hearing with the heads of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The controversy comes as Facebook already faces heat over a variety of issues, including a fake video that falsely suggested Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was drunkenly slurring her speech, and threatens to overshadow the company’s efforts to crack down on hate speech.
The news broke a day after Facebook touted a progress update on its civil rights audit, a project aimed at addressing criticism from minority groups over how it handles hate speech.
Madihha Ahussain, a lawyer with the group Muslim Advocates, said that the recurring issue of hate speech on both the platform’s public and private spaces is emblematic of institutional problems at Facebook.
“This is not just about Facebook, it’s obviously a much bigger problem, it just felt so raw that we’re seeing this literally the day after they released their audit report,” Ahussain said of the secret CBP group in a phone interview with The Hill.
The firestorm is also putting Facebook in a harsh light amid a pivot to change its business focus to creating a more private platform, an effort which puts a greater emphasis on groups.
“We want everyone using Facebook to feel safe,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement to The Hill. “Our Community Standards apply across Facebook, including in secret groups. We’re cooperating with federal authorities in their investigation.”
Stone would not say whether Facebook plans to comply with the Oversight Committee’s request or if the secret group violated its standards against hate speech.
The demand from lawmakers creates a new headache for Facebook as it now must decide whether to hand over private information about its users to the government. If it doesn’t, critics will likely question the company’s commitment to tackling hate speech, a problem that has plagued the platform and is one of many issues prompting scrutiny from governments around the world.
The details of the secret Facebook group emerged from a report by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica at a time when Democratic lawmakers are pushing for greater scrutiny of CBP’s treatment of migrants. And it coincided with reports of the conditions faced by detained migrants.
The DHS Inspector General’s office issued a report this week detailing overcrowding in the agency’s detention centers along with shocking sanitary conditions.
The ProPublica report revealed that CBP agents had used their secret group, called “I’m 10-15” after the agency’s code for having a migrant in custody, to share offensive content that may violate Facebook’s content policies and CBP’s conduct standards.
Screenshots shared with Propublica showed that group members joked about dead migrants and made lewd and racist comments about Ocasio-Cortez and other Hispanic lawmakers.
“Reporting this week highlighted disturbing & inexcusable social media activity that allegedly includes active Border Patrol personnel. These statements are completely unacceptable, especially if made by those sworn to uphold the @DHSgov mission, our values & standards of conduct,” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said on Twitter Wednesday morning.
Facebook on Sunday released a progress report on a long-running civil rights audit.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s number two executive, said in a blog post that it showed there is much more work to be done and that the company would be convening a task force to tackle civil rights issues.
“We know these are the first steps to developing long-term accountability,” Sandberg wrote. “We plan on making further changes to build a culture that explicitly protects and promotes civil rights on Facebook.”
But the progress report fell short for many rights groups who had been pushing the company to make significant changes to both the platform and its corporate structure.
Muslim Advocates on Wednesday called for Zuckerberg and Sandberg to step down from their seats on the company’s board of directors in order to allow for better oversight. Ahussain said that their dual roles insulates the executives from checks on their authority and that the board lacks “the diversity that is representative of Facebook’s global users.”
“This type of behavior and speech is found all over the platform,” she said. “The reality is we see so much more work to be done and they’re falling so short of addressing these problems.”
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/451598-facebook-finds-itself-dragged-into-border-controversy
