Making a bug into a feature !
Facebook plans to let people see if they had "liked" pages created by "foreign actors" to spread propaganda during the US presidential election. The social network has previously said as many as 126 million Americans may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based agents over the past two years. It is building a tool to let people see whether they had followed now-deleted pages made by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency. The tool will be launched in December.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42096045
Until the check clears then it's back to business as usual.
ReplyDeleteChecking to see if pages are liked by Russian agencies today, checking if it's by democrats tomorrow, and then it's the 'immigrant scum who should get their own Facebook' check in a near future.
ReplyDeleteTransparency is a good thing. Matter Beam, I don't understand your criticism; sure people will come up with conspiracy theories for everything; but they do that anyway. As a consumer, if Facebook is more transparent about who is sponsoring ads / news articles, this is a good thing. That said; I'd prefer for them to be transparent with everything; and if possible, provide full funding chains for organizations; to prevent organizations from skirting this via shell companies that receive "donations" from "aid organizations."
ReplyDeleteChris Greene Transparency is a noble objective. I just fear that the well-meaning tools we're creating today will be commercialized and misused by actors with less noble intents. This has happened to practically every single development we've thought up of to improve our lives online.
ReplyDeleteFor example, this case. Facebook has a problem. It could attempt, or forced to, solve the problem directly, which is profiteering from obvious social engineering and propaganda campaigns on its platform. Instead, it develops a tool that just exposes the problem, without trying to solve it, then turn around and promotes its politics.fb.com - Facebook for Politics service...
I simply don't trust that Facebook won't also turn these new tools into a money making machine.
I think it has scope for unintended consequences. For instance, seeing at a glance what sort of demographics like a post could have the effect of exacerbating the filter bubble.
ReplyDelete