Finally, Facebook admits: We DO harm democracy
FACEBOOK has finally admitted it is damaging democracy with its ‘toxic discourse’.
Executives at the internet giant yesterday confessed that social media had become a vehicle for fake news and ‘dishonest campaigns’ designed to drive society apart and undermine elections.
In an unusually candid series of blogs, they also said Facebook had been ‘far too slow’ to pick up on malicious groups who were abusing its platform. And they said social media in general corroded democracy so badly, it was impossible to guarantee the positives will ‘outweigh the negatives’.
The devastating admissions came after overwhelming evidence that Russia used the social platform to try to rig the US Presidential election and the Brexit vote. On a day of shame for internet giants: A police chief accused them of ‘fundamentally enabling’ paedophiles to sexually abuse children;
The former head of GCHQ said they have less than a year to tackle extremist content before a legal crackdown;
Google was accused of refusing to remove
‘Spread toxic discourse’
blogs by a murderer taunting the mother of his teenage victim.
Samidh Chakrabarti, a manager in Facebook’s ‘civic engagement’ team, yesterday said foreign interference was just one of the threats social media posed to democracy. He said Facebook’s ability to target adverts at niche audiences – known as ‘micro-targeting’ – could enable ‘dishonest campaigns to spread toxic discourse’.
‘Democracy then suffers because we don’t get the full picture of what our leaders are promising us. This is an even more pernicious problem,’ he added.
‘Facebook was originally designed to connect friends and family ... but as unprecedented numbers of people channel their energy through this medium, it’s being used in unforeseen ways with societal repercussions that were never anticipated.’
Referring to social media more generally, Mr Chakrabarti said: ‘At its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy. I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t.’
His comments came a day after a major poll revealed that seven out of ten people think Facebook, Twitter and Google are failing to get to grips with bullying, the spread of extremist content, child sex abuse and other illegal activity.
Last week, a Mail investigation found that drug dealers are openly using Facebook to target children.
And last year, it emerged that paedophiles are posting highly sexualised images of children in private Facebook groups aimed at predators. Many of the images appear to have been posted innocently – by youngsters showing off their gymnastics routines or dancing in their nightwear – but they are hijacked by paedophiles who leave vile comments.
Last month, ex-Facebook boss Chamath Palihapitiya warned that the company was ‘ripping apart the fabric of how society works’, and said he no longer lets his children use it.
Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, said the social network was exploiting a ‘vulnerability in human psychology’ by encouraging people to become addicted, adding: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.’
Meanwhile, a growing number of users are turning their backs on social media websites, after a string of reports found that Facebook and Instagram – the photosharing platform it owns – make them envy other people’s lives and feel disappointed with their own.
Facebook’s admission that it is damaging democracy is a highly unusual move. Little more than a year ago, founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was ‘crazy’ to think that so-called ‘fake news’ spread on his website had an impact on the 2016 US Presidential race.
It came as Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the country’s most senior police officer charged with tackling child abuse, said internet giants were ‘fundamentally enabling’ paedophiles to sexually abuse children. He said the threat to children was growing at a ‘phenomenal pace’.
And Robert Hannigan, the former head of intelligence agency GCHQ, said web giants must show they are serious about tackling extremist material on their sites within a year or face penalties. Mr Hannigan said they had to do more to remove online terrorist content such as beheading videos and bomb-making manuals.
Elsewhere, Google was criticised yesterday over its failure to deal with the fallout from abuse.
Lewis Daynes, 18, was jailed for life for grooming and killing Breck Bednar, 14. But he was still able to target Breck’s mother, Lorin LaFave, from behind bars by posting blogs about her.
Miss LaFave told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that when she asked Google to remove the posts, the web search giant told her she would have to contact her son’s killer directly.