Facebook Employees Raised Alarms About Far-Right Sites

In the latest edition of its ongoing "Facebook Files" series, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at a trove of internal message-board conversations that reveal strife at the social media company over its treatment of Breitbart and other conservative news sites. Employees regularly questioned Breitbart's inclusion on News Tab and in the Facebook Audience Network, and also called out Facebook for failing to follow its own content-moderation rules for right-wing sites. But superiors at the company frequently pushed back on their complaints, arguing Facebook would spark too much controversy if it appeared to be targeting right-wing sites. Specifics, plus more headlines related to the social network as it faces increasing scrutiny:

• News Tab: While Breitbart was not among the first tier of publishers, which are actually paid for their content, it is among a second tier of publishers that deliver news targeted to users' specific interests. In the wake of George Floyd's death, as Breitbart published articles painting Black Lives Matter protests in a negative light, employees pushed for it to be removed, but it was not.

• Facebook Audience Network: Breitbart was among the third-party publishers for whom Facebook sold ads as part of this program, and one employee argued that "allowing Breitbart to monetize through us is, in fact, a political statement." Advertisers started asking to avoid having their ads run on Breitbart after the 2016 election, but employees said ads still sometimes nonetheless appeared there.
• Failure to follow its own rules: Employees say that various content-moderation rules have been skirted when it comes to far-right sites, with employees hearing from supervisors that any efforts to repress the influence of such sites would invite too much political blowback. See the Journal's full story for much more.
• Widespread failure: The Washington Post, meanwhile, dives into Facebook's failure to implement key safety protocols in India—the company's biggest market—and, as a result, hate speech and violent rhetoric have run rampant there.
• "Cross-Check": CNN takes a look at a program said to have shielded "VIP" users from content-moderation rules.
• Carol and Karen: Two fake accounts created by a Facebook researcher show how quickly users can be sucked in to misinformation based on the interests they express on Facebook, and how easily the country is divided as a result. Much more here and here.
• A look at "Stop the Steal": NPR delves into how the conspiracy theory group outpaced Facebook's efforts to get it off the site ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
• No more Zuck? The Facebook whistleblower tells the Guardian shareholders would boot CEO Mark Zuckerberg if they could, but Zuck himself controls the majority of the voting shares. Full interview here.
• Some (sort of) good news: Bloomberg reports that Facebook's Oversight Board is "better than no regulation."

(More Facebook stories.)