{"id":766,"date":"2020-10-29T09:16:33","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T09:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1326058"},"modified":"2020-10-29T09:16:33","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T09:16:33","slug":"facebook-is-subverting-democracy-again-and-its-doing-it-on-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=766","title":{"rendered":"Facebook is subverting democracy again \u2014 and it\u2019s doing it on purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As the US presidential election polling day draws close, it\u2019s worth recapping what we know about how Facebook has been used to influence election results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The platform is optimized for boosting politically conservative voices calling for fascism, separatism, and xenophobia<\/a>. It\u2019s also these voices that tend to generate the most clicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Facebook has on several occasions been made to choose between keeping to its community standards<\/a> or taking a path that avoids the ire of conservatives. Too many times, it has chosen the latter.<\/p>\n

The result has been an onslaught of divisive rhetoric that continues to flood the platform and drive political polarization in society.<\/p>\n

[Read: What audience intelligence data tells us about the 2020 US presidential election<\/span><\/a>]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

How democracy can be subverted online<\/h2>\n

According to The New York Times<\/a>, earlier this year US intelligence officials warned Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential campaign, with the goal of seeing President Donald Trump re-elected.<\/p>\n

This was corroborated by findings<\/a> from the US Brennan Centre for Justice. A research team led by journalism and communications professor Young Mie Kim identified a range of Facebook troll accounts deliberately sowing division \u201cby targeting both the left and right, with posts to foment outrage, fear, and hostility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most were linked to Russia\u2019s Internet Research Agency (IRA), the company<\/a> also behind a 2016 US election influence campaign. Kim wrote<\/a> the troll accounts seemed to discourage certain people from voting, with a focus on swing states.<\/p>\n

This month, Facebook announced<\/a> a ban (across both Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook owns) on groups and pages devoted to the far-right conspiracy group QAnon. It also removed<\/a> a network of fake accounts linked to a conservative US political youth group, for violating rules against \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, despite Facebook\u2019s repeated promises<\/a> to clamp down harder on such behavior \u2014 and occasional<\/a> efforts to actually do so \u2014 the company has been widely<\/a> criticized<\/a> for doing far too little to curb the spread of disinformation, misinformation, and election meddling.<\/p>\n

According to a University of Oxford study<\/a>, 70 countries (including Australia) practiced either foreign or domestic election meddling in 2019. This was up from 48 in 2018 and 28 in 2017. The study said Facebook was \u201cthe platform of choice\u201d for this.<\/p>\n

The Conversation approached Facebook for comment regarding the platform\u2019s use by political actors to influence elections, including past US elections. A Facebook spokesperson said:<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019ve hired experts, built teams with experience across different areas, and created new products, policies, and partnerships to ensure we\u2019re ready for the unique challenges of the US election.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When Facebook favored one side<\/h2>\n

Facebook has drawn widespread criticism for its failure to remove posts that clearly violate its policies on hate speech, including posts<\/a> by Trump himself.<\/p>\n

The company openly exempts<\/a> politicians from its fact-checking program and knowingly hosts misleading content from politicians, under its \u201cnewsworthiness exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Facebook tried to clamp down on misinformation in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential elections, ex-Republican staffer<\/a> turned Facebook executive Joel Kaplan argued doing so would disproportionately target conservatives, the Washington Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Conversation asked Facebook whether Kaplan\u2019s past political affiliations indicated a potential for conservative bias in his current role. The question wasn\u2019t answered.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s board also now features a major Trump donor<\/a> and vocal supporter, Peter Thiel. Facebook\u2019s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has himself been accused of getting \u201ctoo close\u201d<\/a> to Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, when the US Federal Trade Commission investigated Facebook\u2019s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it was Republican votes<\/a> that saved the company from facing antitrust litigation.<\/p>\n

Overall, Facebook\u2019s model has shifted towards increasing polarization<\/a>. Incendiary and misinformation-laden posts tend to generate clicks.<\/p>\n

As Zuckerberg himself notes<\/a>, \u201cwhen left unchecked, people on the platform engage disproportionately\u201d with such content.<\/p>\n

Over the years, conservatives have accused Facebook of anti-conservative bias<\/a>, for which the company faced financial penalties by the Republican Party<\/a>. This is despite research indicating no such bias exists<\/a> on the platform.<\/p>\n

Fanning the flames<\/h2>\n

Facebook\u2019s addictive<\/a> news feed rewards us for simply skimming headlines, conditioning us to react viscerally.<\/p>\n

Its sharing features have been found to promote falsehoods<\/a>. They can trick users<\/a> into attributing news to their friends, causing them to assign trust to unreliable news sources. This provides a breeding ground for conspiracies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Studies<\/a> have also shown social media to be an ideal environment for campaigns aimed at creating mistrust, which explains the increasing erosion of trust in science and expertise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Worst of all are Facebook\u2019s \u201cecho chambers,\u201d which convince people that only their own opinions are mainstream. This encourages hostile \u201cus versus them\u201d dialogue, which leads to polarization. This pattern suppresses valuable democratic debate<\/a> and has been described as an existential threat to democracy itself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Facebook\u2019s staff hasn\u2019t been shy about skewing liberal, even suggesting in 2016 that Facebook work to prevent Trump\u2019s election<\/a>. Around 2017, they proposed a feature called \u201cCommon Ground<\/a>,\u201d which would have encouraged users with different political beliefs to interact in less hostile ways.<\/p>\n

Kaplan opposed the proposition, according to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>, due to fears it could trigger claims of bias against conservatives. The project was eventually shelved in 2018.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s track record isn\u2019t good news for those who want to live in a healthy democratic state. Polarization certainly doesn\u2019t lead to effective political discourse.<\/p>\n

While several blog<\/a> posts<\/a> from the company outline measures being taken to supposedly protect the integrity of the 2020 US presidential elections, it remains to be seen what this means in reality<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> by Michael Brand<\/a>, Adjunct A\/Prof of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Monash University<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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