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As Facebook’s internal documents were widely circulated to the media, it continues to be questionable how this social network will change. VOA’s Michelle Quinn reports on Facebook’s challenges as lawmakers demand increased rules and activists demand wider disclosure of information.
Last May, as violence engulfed Israel and the Palestinian territories, Palestinian activists complained that Facebook had blocked many of pro-Palestinian posts and accounts.
The Facebook company said it had problems with its program that tracks the use of hate speech vocabulary.
But a few months later data emerged that the company’s employees had deeper concerns.
After a former employee made available internal documents of the Facebook company, the partially retouched versions of the documents received by the Congress were also given to some media organizations.
Some documents show how employees expressed frustration with the common practice of suppressing free speech in the region.
Dia Kayyali works to document human rights violations in the region.
“They know there are problems. They give insufficient funds, the staff asks them to do a better job and they are not doing that “, says Dia.
Facebook documents give a rare glimpse of the difficulties of this giant social media company in managing its services around the world.
Frances Haugen, the former employee who leaked the documents, cited the Myanmar case.
A human rights report found that Facebook did not stop using its services to incite divisions and violence.
A similar situation is happening in countries like Ethiopia, says Ms. Haugen, where misinformation and hate speech circulate, as the company does not have systems to dictate harmful posts in major languages.
“What we saw in Myanmar, what we are seeing now in Ethiopia, are just the first chapters of a story so terrifying that no one wants to read it to the end.”, said Mrs. Haugen.
A spokesman told VOA the company is fighting abuse outside the United States, with the same intensity as inside the United States.
But for many activists, the revelations made by Facebook Documents are not surprising. They have been complaining about Facebook for years, about how the services are used and how they are abused in the southern hemisphere.
“Facebook’s war is being waged in several different languages… The so-called ‘globalized south’ is essentially a free field for hatred, polarization and extremism.”, says Moustafa Ayad, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Lawmakers around the world are debating what rules Facebook should be governed by. And activists want the company to release further information.
“We have to work together to solve problems with content moderation, because the internet is, and should be, global. So global solutions are needed. “, says Dia Kayyali.
The company Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta, has long stated that it aims to unite the world more. The challenge is how to do this safely./VOA
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