Quick hits from the Mother Jones newsroom – By Edwin Ross (Mother Jones) / Oct 10 2021
A Top Facebook Exec Refuses to Say Whether the Company Amplified Insurrectionists Ahead of January 6
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After a long, very bad week for Facebook, the company sent one of its top executives, Nick Clegg, to make the rounds on the Sunday shows. Though, he didn’t make things better for the company. Notably, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—even answer a simple but crucial question: Did Facebook amplify violent rhetoric ahead of the January 6th insurrection?
CNN's Dana Bash: "Did the algorithms that are in place amplify pro-insurrection voices ahead of Jan. 6? Yes or no?"
Facebook's Nick Clegg: "I can't give you a yes or no answer to the individual, personalized feeds that each person uses." pic.twitter.com/MwLUwiYkLI
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 10, 2021
Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen recently revealed how the social media giant knew its algorithms could spread hate and misinformation, warning that Facebook chose “profit over safety.” She claimed that the company’s decision to dissolve its civic integrity unit and roll back protections prematurely contributed to the spread of hate and misinformation that undergirded the insurrection at the US Capitol.
But when CNN’s Dana Bash asked Clegg, who is Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, about Haugen’s claims, specifically about how the company’s algorithms boosted content ahead of January 6, he gave a roundabout non-answer. He said that if the company removed Facebook’s current algorithm, which amplifies posts with more “meaningful social interactions,” that would perpetuate “more, not less, hate speech, more, not less, misinformation.”
