'Fixing' Facebook's algorithm
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The social media giant's algorithm has been accused of amplifying divisive content and disinformation. Could regulating it make Facebook a kinder platform? Ed Butler speaks to the BBC's Silicon Valley correspondent James Clayton about the latest revelations from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, and renewed demands for a crackdown by US lawmakers. Former Facebook data scientist Roddy Lindsay explains how Facebook's alogrithm became the focus of criticism of the platform, and how a change to the law could solve it. Daphne Keller from Stanford's Cyber Policy Center explains the legal minefield when it comes to regulating what social media users can say, and what platforms can promote, online.
(Photo: Frances Haugen testifies in Congress in October 2021, Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.3 | Today, it's Facebook in the spotlight, a former executive claiming the social media giant has betrayed its users. |
| 0:13.8 | When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content, |
| 0:18.9 | it erodes our civic trust. |
| 0:22.4 | It erodes our faith in each other. |
| 0:26.9 | The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart. |
| 0:31.6 | So today we're asking how might all social platforms be reformed, |
| 0:36.2 | especially the algorithms accused of promoting hatred and fake news? |
| 0:42.4 | Do we want to give this fringe and polarizing content an unfair advantage in the ranking algorithms so that it shows up more prominently in the feeds of users? |
| 0:46.2 | Or do we want to have something else? |
| 0:48.6 | That's all in business daily from the BBC. |
| 0:53.6 | I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety. |
| 0:59.4 | Facebook consistently resolved these conflicts in favor of its own profits. |
| 1:04.0 | The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. |
| 1:10.5 | In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to |
| 1:13.4 | actual violence that harms and even kills people. That's Francis Hogan, the former Facebook |
| 1:19.4 | executive speaking before Congress earlier this month. Her whistleblowing testimony didn't just |
| 1:24.7 | contradict. The social media giants claim that it builds community |
| 1:28.4 | and brings the world closer together. With the aid of thousands of Facebook documents, she argued |
| 1:34.7 | the firm had done exactly the opposite. This is not simply a matter of certain social media |
| 1:39.6 | users being angry or unstable or about one side being radicalized against the other. It is about |
| 1:45.9 | Facebook choosing to grow at all costs, becoming an almost trillion dollar company by buying its |
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