Facebook Inc said on Thursday it would start promoting content from public Facebook Groups in users’ news feeds and in search engine results, defying calls by watchdog groups to limit algorithmic recommendations ahead of U.S. elections next month.
In a blog post, Facebook app chief Fidji Simo said the company would surface recommendations in news feeds by showing “related discussions” from public groups next to a link or post. Facebook Groups are communities that form around shared interests, and public groups’ posts can be viewed by any user. Simo said Facebook would also start showing conversations from public groups outside the app, such as in web searches.

Facebook declined to specify when the changes would be rolled out, with a spokesman saying only that U.S. tests would begin “in a very limited capacity” in the coming weeks.

The company, which made groups a strategic priority last year, also said it was adding new moderation tools for the more than 70 million people running those communities to help them reject posts, lead discussions and arrange paid sponsorships.

According to an internal memo seen by The Verge here, the groups push this year has been a success for engagement on the Facebook app, with posts up 31.9% year over year as of August.

At the same time, the company has faced a series of scandals over extremist activity within groups, including the spread of thousands of Boogaloo, QAnon, and militia groups and communities promoting health misinformation.

Facebook has gradually removed some such groups and limited recommendations to others.

Its new groups push comes days after Accountable Tech and a dozen other advocacy organizations called on Facebook to pause its use of group recommendations altogether until the results of the Nov. 3 elections are formally certified.

The coalition accused Facebook of prioritizing groups despite red flags from researchers, warning the tools have become “hidden breeding grounds for disinformation campaigns and organizing platforms for extremists.”

Adam Conner, a former Facebook executive who now leads technology policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said the company’s decision risked accelerating those dynamics.

“Giving content from those groups wider distribution and easier discovery is a dangerous choice right before a contentious election during a pandemic,” said Conner.

source:reuters

Also Read:

FACEBOOK DARK MODE COMING SOON?

CES 2020: INTEL WORKING FOR FACEBOOK'S AI CHIP

KITCHEN CABINET & DRAWER ORGANIZERS IDEA

DIFFERENT TYPES OF VACUUM CLEANERS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS

INSTAGRAM PLANNING TO CHARGE FEE TO PUT LINKS IN CAPTIONS, PATENT SUGGESTS

TOP 5 MOBILES UNDER 25000 IN NEPAL | 2020

BEST TABLETS UNDER 30K IN NEPAL | REVIEWS NEPAL

The outdoor gear company Patagonia is the latest company to announce an advertising boycott of Facebook and its Instagram app for the month of July — or longer — saying the social media giant has failed to take steps to stop the spread on its platform of “hateful lies and dangerous propaganda.”

Patagonia joins The North Face and the outdoor gear company REI, which have announced similar boycotts in recent days. It is not clear how much the boycotts will affect Facebook’s advertising revenue, which was nearly $70 billion in 2019, making up nearly all of its total revenue for the year.

Patagonia, which is based in Ventura, California, spent nearly $1 million on ads about social issues or politics between May 2018 and June 2020, according to Facebook’s ad library. The ads got the “social issues” moniker because they were about environmental issues.

“We deeply respect any brand’s decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information,” said Carolyn Everson, vice president of Facebook’s global business group, in a statement.

Last week, civil rights groups called on large advertisers to stop Facebook ad campaigns during July, saying the social network isn’t doing enough to curtail racist and violent content on its platform.

The groups in the “#StopHateforProfit” campaign, launched Wednesday, include Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense.

The groups say Facebook amplifies white supremacists, allows posts that incite violence and contain political propaganda and misinformation, and doesn’t stop “bad actors using the platform to do harm.”

The big tech companies have struggled over how to manage the floods of posts and videos that users put on their platforms every day. Facebook has been under fire for deciding to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested police-brutality protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.

Social media giant Facebook said Wednesday that it has removed dozens of accounts, some used by employees of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and two of his lawmaker sons. The company said its decision was based on the creation of false profiles that engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

“We could see that there were employees of these offices engaged,” Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of cybersecurity policy, said in a call with journalists. “We cannot see evidence and we do not see evidence of the politicians … or whether there is systemic coordination and direction from the leadership of those offices or not.”

Gleicher added that some of the content posted by the accounts had already been taken down for community standards violations, including hate speech.

There was no comment from Brazil’s presidential office about Facebook’s action.

Facebook’s decision comes as Brazil’s president careens from crisis to crisis, with different investigations drawing close to him, his family and allies. Bolsonaro has faced growing political isolation since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which has also affected his popularity.

He frequently denounces the media for undermining his administration, and often opts to speak directly to his supporters -- whether on Facebook or in person, as they livestream his comments to their followers.

Brazil’s Supreme Court is investigating a network of Bolsonaro supporters who have targeted justices, politicians and the media. Some of them were jailed in June and early July as the investigations moved forward. The country’s top electoral court is also looking into the accusation that the president’s 2018 campaign has illegally financed the spread of false news online.

Gleicher said in a statement that 73 Facebook and Instagram accounts, 14 pages and one group were removed. About 883,000 accounts followed one or more of the Bolsonaro-linked pages and an additional 917,000 followed one of more of the Instagram accounts that were removed.

“This network consisted of several clusters of connected activity that relied on a combination of duplicate and fake accounts — some of which had been detected and disabled by our automated systems — to evade enforcement, create fictitious personas posing as reporters, post content, and manage pages masquerading as news outlets,” Gleicher said in the statement.

He said the accounts were linked to the Social Liberal Party, which Bolsonaro left last year after winning the 2018 presidential election, and to employees of the president, two of his sons, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro and congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, and two other lawmakers.

Atlantic Council, a research firm used by Facebook, said a third son of the president, Rio de Janeiro city council member Carlos Bolsonaro, is also connected to one of the members of the network.

It said the only operator of the accounts that is directly employed by the presidency is Tercio Arnaud Tomaz, a former staffer of Carlos Bolsonaro in Rio’s city council and a member of the president’s digital team in the 2018 presidential campaign. Tomaz did not reply to a request for comment.

Bolsonaro’s allies have previously been accused by adversaries of running information operations, but this is the first time their staffers have been connected to inauthentic accounts, Atlantic Council said.

“This network steered a significant and longstanding operation, stretching back to at least the 2018 presidential campaign and having amassed an audience of millions, that fused political spin and disinformation with targeted online harassment,” the research firm said.

The Social Liberal Party’s spokesperson Luiz Passos denied any responsibility over the removed accounts. He also said the accounts belong to employees of lawmakers who are at odds with the party and are close to switching to another that is led by staunch supporters of the president.

Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro said in a statement that “it is impossible to evaluate what kind of profile was banned and if the platform crossed or not the limits of censorship.” Lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro did not comment.

Facebook suspended three other networks on Wednesday, including one it attributed Roger Stone, a longtime ally of U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

Facebook and Microsoft's grievances over how their gaming apps appear on Apple's App Store may feed into an EU investigation into the iPhone maker's business as EU antitrust regulators said such concerns are on their radar.

The European Commission in June opened four probes into Apple, three of which are into its App Store and its restrictive rules, including requirements that app developers use its own in-app purchasing system.

US social media giant Facebook and Microsoft are the latest companies to voice concerns about the rules, which have drawn criticism from app developers who say they create an uneven playing field to compete with the iPhone maker.

Asked about Facebook and Microsoft's issues with Apple, Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said in a statement: "The Commission is aware of these concerns regarding Apple's App Store rules."

She did not provide details.

Apple dismissed criticism of its App Store rules, saying that all apps are reviewed against the same set of guidelines whose aim is to protect customers and provide a fair and level playing field for developers.

Facebook last week said its gaming app was only available on Apple's App Store as a streaming service and that users will not be able to play games.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said the company had to remove gameplay functionality entirely to secure Apple's approval of its Facebook Gaming app.

Microsoft, which has a game-streaming service called Project xCloud said: "Apple stands alone as the only general-purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming and game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass."

"It consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content," it added in an emailed statement.

Source: Reuters

 

Also Read:

MICROSOFT’S SURFACE DUO HAS REVEALED IT'S RELEASE PLANS

SAMSUNG LAUNCHES GALAXY WATCH3 AND BUDS LIVE

SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S7+, GALAXY TAB S7 WITH DUAL REAR CAMERAS, S PEN SUPPORT LAUNCHED

MILLIONS OF IPHONES AND IPADS AT RISK TO NEW EMAIL HACK; APPLE SAYS FIX IS COMING SOON

APPLE AND GOOGLE ADDING NEW FEATURES FOR PUBLIC HEALTH DEVELOPERS TO BUILD CONTACT-TRACING APPS