Earlier this month, the European Union made it clear that extremist content should be eliminated in one or two hours, asking companies such as Facebook, Google or Twitter to improve the moderation process.
The problem comes when you have a platform with 2 billion active users, since moderating all the generated content becomes a titanic task. The company’s 7,500 moderators do not seem to deal with the amount of work they have.
Facebook asks for forgiveness
Propublica, an independent, non-profit news agency based in Manhattan, sent 49 hateful publications to the social network . The problem is that the moderators missed 22 times. That is, in almost 50% of cases.
On six of the occasions, Facebook shielded itself in that the users had badly marked the publications (in six examples) and that they did not have too much information to answer (in two cases)
In addition, Facebook defended 19 of its decisions, in publications that included sexist, racist and anti-Semitic content. Justin Osofsky, vice president of the company , signed a statement in which he said that “they feel the mistakes they have made.”
“We have to do better.”
Osofsky said that in 2018 the security team of the social network will reach 20,000 members. It has also ensured that Facebook eliminates some 66,000 publications a week , which were previously reported to contain hate messages.
The case of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov
Precisely, this week we knew that the Facebook and Instagram accounts of the homophobic Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov were blocked. An inveterate narcissist, he used social networks to show an excessive “masculinity” and to presume supposed sporting achievements.
Kadyrov’s profiles were closed after he was included in the list of prohibited persons in the United States . In this case, he was penalized for his homophobic attitude outside of social networks, since he used his profiles to feed his ego.
In a second Instagram account (which can not be accessed either), he issued a statement in which he seems somewhat resentful. He claimed that he himself had already thought about erasing their profiles:
“They wanted to bother me, but they failed, I was thinking about leaving this social network for a long time, but I did not want to bother my friends and followers, almost four million.” The network has long sought to be independent from Washington DC and its decision came immediately. After the sanctions of the US Treasury, they will be able to block the accounts, but they will never be able to block the name of Ramzan Kadyrov, or the social networks or those who manage them. “