Exclusive: Facebook commits to civil rights audit, political bias review

[DonViejo]

Source: Axios


Sara Fischer 5 hours ago


To address allegations of bias, Facebook is bringing in two outside advisors — one to conduct a legal audit of its impact on underrepresented communities and communities of color, and another to advise the company on potential bias against conservative voices.

Why it matters: The efforts are happening in response to allegations that the tech giant censors conservative voices and discriminates against minority groups. Facebook hopes the independent audit and formal advising partnership will show it takes these issues very seriously.

The civil rights audit will be guided by Laura Murphy, a national civil liberties and civil rights leader who serves as the Director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. Murphy will take feedback from civil rights groups, like The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and advise Facebook on the best path forward.

Relman, Dane & Colfax, a prominent law firm based in Washington, will carry out a comprehensive civil rights audit of Facebook's services and internal operations. The firm has litigated some of the most pivotal cases relating to housing, employment and public accommodation discrimination over the past two decades.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/scoop-facebook-committing-to-internal-pobias-audit-1525187977-160aaa3a-3d10-4b28-a4bb-b81947bd03e4.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twsocialshare&utm_campaign=organic

[turbinetree]

1. Well they've been down this road before.................and said a lot of stuff,

that didn't mean anything


I am so glad I am not a Facebook user.....................

[PSPS]

2. LOL. "censors conservative voices" means censoring lies and propaganda.

The only people who would complain about "censoring conservative voices" live in St. Petersburg or are otherwise on putin's payroll.

[unblock]

3. "advise... potential bias against conservative voices"?? this is obviously right-wing biased

if they're going in looking for bias specifically against conservative voices and not equally looking for bias against liberal voices or other political voices, then they're building in a right-wing bias by design.

[.99center]

4. Deja vu

Alt-right groups complain about bias, Facebook becomes a haven for white supremacist and fake news.

Just in time for the midterms...

Facebook is trying to get rid of bias in Trending news by getting rid of humans.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/768122/facebook-fires-human-editors-moves-to-algorithm-for-trending-topics/amp/
Facebook will no longer employ humans to write descriptions for items in its Trending section, which attracted controversy over allegations of political bias in May. Topics appearing in the Trending section will now appear solely as a short phrase or single word, with an indication of the number of people discussing it on the social network

In firing human editors, Facebook has lost the fight against fake news.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-trending-news-editors-fake-news-stories
Two days after it was replacing the humans that write the Trending Topics descriptions with robots, a fake article about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly appeared in its list of trending stories.

On Friday, Facebook announced that in a bid to reduce bias it would make the Trending feature more automated and laid off up to 26 contractors hired to write and edit the short descriptions that accompanied each trend. On Sunday a story headlined “Breaking: Fox News Exposes Traitor Megyn Kelly, Kicks Her Out for Backing Hillary” found its way into the list of trending stories – despite the fact that it’s not true.

[dalton99a]

5. Folks, both sides. Both sides.