4 ms·

Facebook whistleblower documents evidence of moderation algorithm and team bias

17 points by drak0n1c 6y ago

uncoder0 6y ago
I wish there was a completely technical solution to moderation sadly it's a human problem and humans come with their biases. It's election season if someone could document systemic political bias would that be treated as an in-kind donation under the FEC regulations?
- thedudeabides5 6y ago
  Remember just a couple years ago when it looked like we were going to have sentient robots around the corner... Now if we could just get a content moderation system that isn’t a human kludge mess, then maybe we can worry about general AI
uniqueid 6y ago
According to Wikipedia, "Project Veritas is an American right-wing activist group. The group uses "disguises and hidden cameras to uncover supposed liberal bias and corruption". The group is known for producing deceptively edited videos about media organizations and left-leaning groups" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas
- mansion7 6y ago
  Are you accusing their source of lying? Or the hidden camera footage of their moderators as admitting bias - were they lying? What do you allege was deceptively edited here? Because what is reported by detractors as "deceptive editing" looks typical of just plain "editing" for clarity and brevity, not unlike what CNN or MSNBC may do. Else the recordings would literally be hours long. Regarding Wikipedia's pronouncements, Wikipedia sources are largely news articles. Surveys of journalists show that those willing to identify themselves politically overwhelmingly identify as left leaning, the groups that Veritas tends to target. As such, the sources Wikipedia uses are more likely to be from organizations and writers with a bias against Veritas or towards their targets. Not only that, Wikipedia itself, via Wikimedia, provides grants to left leaning organizations to host "edit-thons" to both generate content (which naturally coincides with the biases of the authors) and edit existing content (again, which naturally reinforces said biases). Not to mention the edit-thons not specifically funded or requested by Wikipedia themselves. In any case, if this were the first, second, third, or even fourth time Facebook had been secretly caught with such biased ideological considerations, it may be a valid point. Sadly, it isn't. It keeps happening, and it keeps happening in favor of one side of the US political spectrum.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    > Are you accusing their source of lying? I never said that. I just selectively quoted Wikipedia to make Project Veritas look bad.
pcunite 6y ago
Well, it is interesting to see a FB employee, who has a nice salary I would imagine, coming out with his view of how internal FB staff behave.

17 points by drak0n1c 6y ago

I wish there was a completely technical solution to moderation sadly it's a human problem and humans come with their biases. It's election season if someone could document systemic political bias would that be treated as an in-kind donation under the FEC regulations?

thedudeabides5 6y ago
Remember just a couple years ago when it looked like we were going to have sentient robots around the corner... Now if we could just get a content moderation system that isn’t a human kludge mess, then maybe we can worry about general AI

uniqueid 6y ago

According to Wikipedia, "Project Veritas is an American right-wing activist group. The group uses "disguises and hidden cameras to uncover supposed liberal bias and corruption". The group is known for producing deceptively edited videos about media organizations and left-leaning groups" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas

mansion7 6y ago
Are you accusing their source of lying? Or the hidden camera footage of their moderators as admitting bias - were they lying? What do you allege was deceptively edited here? Because what is reported by detractors as "deceptive editing" looks typical of just plain "editing" for clarity and brevity, not unlike what CNN or MSNBC may do. Else the recordings would literally be hours long. Regarding Wikipedia's pronouncements, Wikipedia sources are largely news articles. Surveys of journalists show that those willing to identify themselves politically overwhelmingly identify as left leaning, the groups that Veritas tends to target. As such, the sources Wikipedia uses are more likely to be from organizations and writers with a bias against Veritas or towards their targets. Not only that, Wikipedia itself, via Wikimedia, provides grants to left leaning organizations to host "edit-thons" to both generate content (which naturally coincides with the biases of the authors) and edit existing content (again, which naturally reinforces said biases). Not to mention the edit-thons not specifically funded or requested by Wikipedia themselves. In any case, if this were the first, second, third, or even fourth time Facebook had been secretly caught with such biased ideological considerations, it may be a valid point. Sadly, it isn't. It keeps happening, and it keeps happening in favor of one side of the US political spectrum.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  > Are you accusing their source of lying? I never said that. I just selectively quoted Wikipedia to make Project Veritas look bad.

pcunite 6y ago

Well, it is interesting to see a FB employee, who has a nice salary I would imagine, coming out with his view of how internal FB staff behave.