According to internal documents on Facebook, executives at the company knew that its algorithm promoted hate speech and was biased towards people of colour but did not take any action.
It was also known as the “worst project of all time” and included hate speech postings that were posted on the site. 10 of the most disturbing examples were shared. The Washington Post reported that five of these posts targeted black people while two were targeting members of the LGBTQ community. There were also three other hate-speech posts directed at white people.
A picture was included in one of the postings of four Democratic female lawmakers, known as “The Squad”. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were part of the group. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez also made up this group at a July 2019 news conference.
The poster used a racist slur against Tlaib and Omar as they are both Muslim and another commenter referred to the whole group as ‘black c***s.’
Another post read ‘Many s**thole immagruntz on welfare send money back to their homejungles.’
Another picture featuring a chimpanzee with a long-sleeved shirt was featured, along with the caption “Here’s Michelle Obama.”
“The border requires only a handful of motion-sensor machine guns turrets for humanitarian aid. Another post said that the problem was solved.
One of the featured posts was titled “The Squad”, and it features four Democratic women leaders Rashida Teb (left), Illhan Ullahi Omar, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (right), Ayanna Pressley(right).
According to internal documents, a “worst-of-the worst” project was created in order to compile a list of 10 Facebook posts which were biased against people with color.
Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta late October to avoid a lengthy list of scandals.
After Frances Haugen, whistleblower for the company leaked documents within the company and claimed that it “puts profit over people” by intentionally harming teens with its content.
Online hate speech related racism was reported back to 2019, after Facebook executives were urged by researchers to delete posts they considered to be ‘hateful’ to people of color.
According to Washington Post, some executives of the company, including Joel Kaplan (Vice President), disapproved of certain ideas because he believed it would cause controversy and make the site look favorably over specific groups.
Facebook however had not agreed to take any measure necessary after the documents that compile the top 10 most hateful posts on Facebook were provided to it. The project was nicknamed ‘The worst of the worst.
The poster had called the four women collectively as ‘black c***s’
Joel Kaplan was reportedly Facebook’s vice president for global public policy. He had apparently rejected some parts of this proposal, fearing that he would favor certain groups more than others.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told the Washington Post: ‘The worst of the worst project helped show us what kinds of hate speech our technology was and was not effectively detecting and understand what forms of it people believe to be the most insidious.’
Stone stated that policies were being implemented by the company to ban white nationalist groups, promote racial stereotypes and reduce hate speech online.
However, he pointed out that his company didn’t incorporate every part of the project.
“But after a thorough internal discussion over these difficult questions we decided not to implement all parts because doing so would actually have resulted in fewer automated eliminations of hate speech, such as comments of inferiority regarding women or expressions de contempt towards multiracial individuals,” he explained.
Facebook has also hired civil rights auditors for research into racial issues using their software in 2018.
Auditors claimed not to have been made aware that the algorithm was causing harm to people of color.
The company did not tell Laura Murphy, who was leading the civil rights process, that it does not record data about the protected group(s), against whom hate speech was directed.
Murphy explained that while Murphy did not claim any nefarious intent or anything, it was concerning that metrics that indicated the disproportionate effect of hate directed towards Black, Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQIA people were not shared by the auditors.
“Clearly they have collected data along these lines.”
Facebook introduced software to identify racist hate speech in 2015. However, most posts that were taken down by the company were directed at Whites.
Minority groups accused the software of favouring White opinions over those of other users.
‘Even though (Facebook executives) don’t have any animus toward people of color, their actions are on the side of racists,’ former Facebook manager Tatenda Musapatike said
“You believe that women of color are less important than their rich White male friends.
A February report shows that Black Internet users have also declined. They fell by 2.7% in one month, to 17.3 millions adults, with their peak in September 2020.
According to records, more than half the hate speech directed at Blacks, Muslims and the LGBTQ community was discovered in 2019.
Ilhan Omar released a statement saying that this information confirmed what most of us already knew, that Facebook was an active participant in spreading hate speech and misinformation.
“For many years we raised concerns with Facebook regarding routine anti-Muslim and anti-Black content on Facebook. Many of this was based on outright lies.
“It is evident that they are only interested in profit and will sacrifice the democracy of our country to achieve it.”