"I Have Blood On My Hands": A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo

Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The 6,600-word memo, written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, is filled with concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion. In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, she found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them.

“In the three years I’ve spent at Facebook, I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions,” wrote Zhang, who declined to talk to BuzzFeed News. Her LinkedIn profile said she “worked as the data scientist for the Facebook Site Integrity fake engagement team” and dealt with “bots influencing elections and the like.”

“I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count,” she wrote.

*snip*

[Blecht]

1. All social media are problematic in some way

But Facebook is the worst -- it's an immediate threat to our safety.

[llmart]

4. If you haven't already watched it...

and have Netflix, watch "The Social Dilemma". You will see how correct you are about all social media. Trust me. It's a frightening documentary.

[rockfordfile]

2. true

[Laelth]

3. Very noble of her.

She turned down the severance package so that she could speak her truth. Admirable.



-Laelth