Headline Roundup • October 25th, 2021
Leaks Fuel Continued Scrutiny of Facebook From Across the Spectrum
Facebook,Media Industry,Social Media,Online Censorship,Big Tech,Free Speech,Technology,People And Profit
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Thousands of leaked internal Facebook documents continue to fuel news reports about the company and its alleged neglect of the platform's negative effects on information and public health. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, originally leaked the documents to the Wall Street Journal, setting off a chain of investigative reports from the Journal and other news sources which examined everything from Facebook's handling of misinformation and censorship to its psychological effects on kids and teens. Haugen testified before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection earlier this month, accusing the company of putting "their astronomical profits before people."
Left-rated outlets often focused on leaks that revealed Facebook's handling of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and efforts to combat hate speech from users outside the U.S. Some right-rated outlets highlighted revelations from the leaked documents that suggest Facebook suppressed conservative news sites on its platform.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Facebook Papers, a series of articles published by a consortium of 17 U.S. news outlets beginning on Friday, shed new light on the company’s thinking behind its actions leading up to the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 and its ability to fend of hate speech in languages outside of English.
Facebook shares were slightly negative in premarket trading Monday morning after the news outlets published their stories based on the leaked documents. The company is also scheduled to report quarterly earnings after markets close on Monday.
The documents were provided to...
CNN Business
Facebook has confronted whistleblowers, PR firestorms and Congressional inquiries in recent years. But now it faces a combination of all three at once in what could be the most intense and wide-ranging crisis in the company's 17-year history.
On Friday, a consortium of 17 US news organizations began publishing a series of stories — collectively called "The Facebook Papers" — based on a trove of hundreds of internal company documents which were included in disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's legal counsel. The consortium,...
AP Photo/Jenny Kane **FILE**
One tool was abandoned, WSJ report on internal debates says.
Another one, known as “Informed Engagement,” reduced the reach of posts that were more likely to be shared if even if the sharer hadn’t read the articles, The Journal reported, elevating the content of mainstream outlets. A 2019 company analysis found its impact fell heavily on sites considered to be conservative.
“We could face significant backlash for having ‘experimented’ with distribution at the expense of conservative publishers,” one of the researchers wrote in an internal memo reviewed by The Journal.
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