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4 years since the affair, Facebook's conduct still raises questions about its readiness for elections

The social network's handling of an incident in which a white boy shot at black protesters in Wisconsin recalled her activities in the 2016 presidential race.

Towards November 3, Facebook announced a series of measures that will prevent the spread of lies on the net.

However, experts warn: exposure affects far more than labeling content as political

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• Facebook

• United States

• Wisconsin

• Donald Trump

• Joe Biden

Mikey Levy

Saturday, 26 September 2020, 19:55

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In the video: Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook were questioned at the US Congress about harming competition (Photo: Reuters, Editing: Nir Chen)

A 17-year-old white boy walks around with a semi-automatic weapon and shoots to death at close range two black protesters in the town of Kanusha, during a wave of riots that erupted in the city following the shooting of police officers in the back by a black boy, a few days earlier.

The shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, saw them as "bad thugs," as the Facebook group he was a member of called and incited against.

The incident, which took place a month ago, was videotaped and exacerbated the demonstrations against racial discrimination and police violence - until the fatal outcome.

Rittenhouse is a member of a white militia that it claims has protected businesses from rioters.

The militia used to convey messages through a Facebook group whose members called for violence.

The tech giant knew about it, and although hundreds of people reported the dangerous messages - it did not take any action on the grounds of "malfunction".

In doing so, Facebook, which is not subject to supervision and regulation, has a significant role to play in the deadly incident.

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Facebook plays a key role in the incitement that led to the deadly incident.

Demonstration in Kanusha (Photo: Reuters)

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, could not help but comment on the storm that linked the incitement in the Mushmar Kanusha group to kill the two protesters. On his personal page on the social network, he noted that the company received complaints about the content, and admitted that "In a second inspection, the team responsible for identifying dangerous groups realized that the post violated Facebook's policy and we removed it," he said. "But the removal of that page was too late.

Facebook's conduct at the event is a reminder of the complexity of the company's actions during the election." To the presidency of the United States in 2016, when it allowed a private company to intervene in the election campaign by using private information about surfers, which later became known as the Cambridge Analytics affair, raising questions about the company's readiness and impact on the November 3 election.

The page was removed too late.

Rittenhouse (Photo: From Twitter)

Facebook's relationship with elections and politicians has always been complex, among other things, given the company's distribution and power, and compared to competing social networks.

For example, the Twitter network has 330 million active users, with 500 million tweets being sent every day.

However, less than half of the total users, 152 million, are active users.

According to a study by analyst firm OmniCore, nearly a quarter of the adult population in the United States uses Twitter, and the data stands at 22% use among adults.

Facebook, on the other hand, has 2.5 billion active users each month, with seven out of ten adults in the United States using Facebook (69%).

The huge gaps show the control and power of Facebook in the world, and in the United States in particular.

So even if Twitter bans the posting of political ads, it seems that overall this is a negligible restriction that will not affect at all, and whoever will determine the future of the election on social media, is Facebook again.

The social network is aware of its power, and remembers the investigations that were opened against it in the United States and brought its representatives to discussions in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

This month, Facebook announced a series of steps it will take to prevent Pike News in the wake of the election.

Between the steps, the company will not approve new political ads in the week before Election Day, so only existing ads that have been approved can be posted that week.

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Called for questioning in Congress.

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg during his testimony (Photo: Reuters)

Also, for every message regarding the identity of the winner of the election, Facebook will add a link to the truth results.

For example, if a user writes that Trump won, before publishing the official results, Facebook in response will add a link to the results in real time.

The company will work to prevent actions that will frighten voters from exercising their right, and will remove content that will determine that a vote will lead to infection in Corona.

The social network will offer a centralized page for reliable information about the virus, for anyone who writes not to vote because of the corona.

In addition, among the steps Facebook will take, a tag will be added to any post that attempts to undermine the democratic process, and as such that will include Pike-News that casts doubt on the voting method and falsification of results by any of the parties.

Despite her announcement about the planned actions, it will be interesting to see the system actually work, when it is not clear how these markings will be performed - by humans, artificial intelligence or a combination of the two.

A tag for each post that will be hit during the election.

Trump at a rally in Virginia (Photo: AP)

Prof. Karin Nahon, an information policy expert from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and president of the Israeli Internet Association, believes that the world's largest social network has changed since the previous election campaign in the United States.

"Since 2016, Facebook has realized it needs to change its ways. It has been somewhere else. A place that has denied the mix in the election, that has denied foreign intervention, that its platform is for extremism and Pike-News. Today it is no longer there, which is already the beginning," Nahon said.

"The thing that has changed since then, is the artificial intelligence system that has greatly improved in identifying fake accounts, in identifying networks of foreign intervention, and also in using the identification of automated tools which is one of the popular tools of campaigners," she added.

According to her, nowadays, if a surfer tries to send a message to hundreds of groups in an automatic tool at the same time, Facebook will recognize that it is one user who made the move, and will delete the messages.

"Recently, it has also started dealing with groups that resonate with conspiracies, and only recently has it blocked a group of 200,000 users," Nahon said.

"She claims she has also blocked 800 teams and she is limiting thousands."

However, she noted that compared to the restrictions imposed by other social networks in the run-up to the presidential election, Facebook has not taken stricter steps.

"Twitter has banned political messages, and YouTube does not allow ads to be tagged according to political affiliation. But Facebook in the last week of the election will restrict the uploading of new campaign ads. In this respect, Facebook has taken less of a step regarding ads, and this is one of its criticisms: They were afraid to stop it, "Nahon noted.

Only 18 million in Facebook ads, compared to 34 million in Trump.

Biden at a rally in North Carolina (Photo: AP)

Nahon believes that there is a gap between the company's statements regarding the filtering of information distributed on the network, and what actually happens.

"For years Facebook has been saying, 'I don't download content that is Pike News because I'm not an arbitrator of the truth.' But that's a lie. Facebook arbitrates the truth every step it takes. It has 15,000 visitors who decide every moment what will and will not. "It sets the rules of the game. What will be deleted - and what will not be deleted," said Nahon.

"When she says she's not dealing with Pike News, then one of the criticisms about it is that she even allows candidates to post political ads and thus spread Pike News. As much as she said she was willing to deal with election interference, at the end of the day she doesn't really address the issue of principle. Of virality in conspiracy and Pike-News stories, "she added.

"Besides, Mark Zuckerberg said he is not an arbitrator of the truth, he also says we want to allow freedom of expression. But that is a sentence that is very problematic when it comes to Facebook and certainly when it comes to elections," she said.

"What does Zuckerberg say? He has a very sophisticated mechanism system based on us, the public. He has taught us for a long time, and he knows with the help of this system, to target, and to do micro-targeting at the most accurate level possible," she added.

"Facebook chooses the truth every step of the way."

Nodded

Prof. Nahon emphasized the problematic nature of Facebook's policy regarding sponsored messages on behalf of.

"But while Zuckerberg has restricted entities from using Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytics affair, when it comes to advertising, those who have money can actually use Facebook's system, which has selective freedom of expression. What Zuckerberg says is that if you have enough money, sir, I'm Can help you reach each and every person. So when he tells everyone he's in favor of free speech, it's limited freedom of expression. He's very much restrict politicians' official pages if they do not use an advertising system. For example, from January to July, Trump spent $ 34 million. On ads, compared to Democrat Party candidate $ 18 million Joe Biden, "she said.

She continued, "The latest changes that Facebook has made in the feed do not allow us to look at recent posts. They create the world for us according to their mechanism and according to their algorithm. This makes it very difficult for the surfer who wants to produce virality organically. Facebook says: There is no virality organically. If you "You want to, go through me and pay a lot of money. And in practice, that means that the more money you have, the more power you have to buy the government. Because it is possible to reach people and target them," Prof. Nahon concluded.

Marking Political Awareness: A band-aid on a bleeding wound

Prof. Gilad Raviv, from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University, believes that Facebook is the one that determines what is a legitimate and illegitimate way of conducting social media.

"Facebook invents the rules of the game, decides when to enforce them, determines the lineup and everything. They are aware of the great power, and they try to create some kind of visibility of political correctness, of fair play and an attempt to maintain fair play rules," Raviv said.

"There is a disproportionate share of what is happening on social media. Facebook has become the main arena in which things are conducted."

He said there is an imbalance between the political camps in the United States and the way Facebook is used.

"I think at least until now, in the US election campaign, one side is using social networks very wisely and more powerfully. Republicans are very much using networks to pump up messages, and on the other hand they are attacking the companies that are constantly running them for unfairness. And it's a game. Double, "Raviv said.

"But both sides benefit greatly from it."

Zuckerberg and Trump

"Facebook in the end has a profit motive, and they know how to do it nicely. There is a commercial element here and an intertwining of power and influence," Prof. Raviv added.

"It is not certain that it was necessarily correct to mark posts as political or to ban posts, but it was enough that they would change the algorithm and their impact would be greater."

According to him, the company invests more in the way the content classification is seen outwardly, and not in its actual impact on surfers.

"They mostly care about the envelope and not the essence. There is a lot of treatment of fair visibility, but in essence what determines here is actually the people who are exposed to the posts. If they cause a person to be disproportionately exposed and resonate, then it will affect public opinion much more than marking content as political content Or sponsored ad. "

The algorithm that will determine our opinions

"The essence of the algorithm is critical here. They do not undertake to publish the political post or bot once, but a user can receive it hundreds of times. So do bots or users who echo the same message or message, and in the end it is the algorithm that determines. Creating a reality that is not necessarily reflecting reality, "Raviv continued.

"They do not commit anywhere, and they do not write that their algorithm reflects reality. They have a method that they are constantly changing to refine and to prevent interested parties from manipulating."

Raviv criticized the company's policy of presenting network users with the same content as their positions.

"Usually the user is mostly shown the posts that support his views, meaning a Republican will mostly be exposed to Republican posts, which reinforces his sense that Republicans are leading and he does not see the opinions of others. And it also promotes discourse. And if the discourse is mainly 'I support you and you support me', then it is very empowering. "

He said, "If once in the traditional mass media we were exposed to a variety of opinions, and we made a decision based on many considerations, then on social media I will only accept more the opinions I believe in. That is one of the reasons why four years ago journalists did not predict Trump's victory. "They did not take into account that they are mainly exposed to opinions similar to their own and because their quarrels come from traditional media, which is democratic, so they did not see the Republican discourse and they were biased for the same reason that the public was biased."

"The algorithm extremes their columns, because they get reinforcements, they have the resonance, and it's just an officer. You also see it on Twitter," Raviv said.

"In the analysis of other people's tweets, the same party echoes the messages, and here you are not exposed to the other party and that is a big danger. There is no editor who balances and the algorithm is designed to be warm and pleasant so that you continue to consume the content. This is very dangerous. "

Meanwhile, the influence through the platform seems to be doing its thing, with on the one hand calls for increased control over Facebook, and on the other hand politicians in the United States continue to make extensive use of the platform to resonate their messages.

And while Twitter is taking a hard line against posting false information by elected officials, Facebook has also chosen this year to let them express themselves as they please.

And the price for lack of oversight: Pike News.

And it is paid by the surfers.

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