Attorneys hired to review Facebook’s civil rights policies concluded Wednesday that the company has failed to adequately combat discrimination and voter suppression on its platform, and rebuked the social network’s executives for prioritizing political speech over civil rights and other values.
The auditors called Facebook’s approach to civil rights "too reactive and piecemeal" in the long-awaited review, and said the company’s recent progress is threatened by its decision not to take action on posts from President Donald Trump that made unsubstantiated claims about mail-in ballots.
"Facebook’s failure to remove the Trump voting-related posts and close enforcement gaps seems to reflect a statement of values that protecting free expression is more important than other stated company values," the auditors wrote in the report.
The audit may be the most consequential critique yet of the absolutist view of free speech that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described as essential to his social network. Though Facebook is not obligated to adopt the auditor’s recommendations, their conclusions will be difficult to ignore as they follow a two-year review that the company sanctioned.
The audit’s findings are also likely to embolden Facebook’s critics in the civil rights community, who in recent weeks have orchestrated a widespread advertising boycott of the company. The report appears to validate a number of their arguments against the company, including that Facebook’s policies prohibiting voter suppression and misinformation are not applied evenly, and that the company should be taking stronger steps to root out white supremacy and other forms of hate.
“I don’t feel that Facebook has embraced the urgency that people want them to operate with," Laura Murphy, a former ACLU director who co-led the audit, said in an interview. "I think that they are moving in the right direction, but the results are not adequate.”
Facebook public policy director Neil Potts said in an interview that the company will review the recommendations and "explore what we can do to ensure that we are still adhering to our core value of giving people voice but recognizing that voice is not unfettered."
"We do have other values like safety, authenticity, privacy, dignity," Potts said.
While the auditors acknowledge Facebook has made strides to root out the foreign election interference that was prevalent during the 2016 presidential race, for instance, Murphy said that its failure to take action against Trump’s misleading statements sets a "very dangerous precedent" for election-related speech allowed on the platform.
"Facebook has made policy and enforcement choices that leave our election exposed to interference by the President and others who seek to use misinformation to sow confusion and suppress voting," the audit states. Facebook should continue to broaden its policies about what constitutes voter suppression and misinformation, and enforce those policies to the fullest extent possible, they write.
Auditors expressed alarm at a much-discussed speech that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered at Georgetown University in October in which he spoke of the social network’s obligation to free speech. They told Facebook leaders that Zuckerberg’s definition of free expression would allow for harmful and divisive rhetoric on the platform that conflicts with the company’s pledge to uplift civil rights.
"The lack of clarity about the relationship between those two values is devastating," the auditors wrote.
“The company has not really addressed the tension of civil rights and free speech head on," Murphy added in an interview. "It’s elevated free speech and the auditors think that civil rights needs to be elevated. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
The auditors found Facebook has not sufficiently address bias in the algorithms that power so much of its network, including those that recommend the groups and content that its users see when they engage on the platform.
"Facebook should do everything in its power to prevent its tools and algorithms from driving people toward self-reinforcing echo chambers of extremism, and that the company must recognize that failure to do so can have dangerous (and life-threatening) real-world consequences," the report states.
Auditors applauded Facebook for establishing a Civil Rights Task Force that meets monthly under the direction of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, and for recently launching a search for a vice president who will oversee civil rights initiatives and training. But the auditors said they are nevertheless "deeply concerned" that Facebook has not hired more civil rights experts across the company over the past two years, saying its recent commitments "do not go far enough" to address the scale of the problem.
Facebook tapped Murphy and civil rights attorney Megan Cacace to lead the independent review of its civil rights policies. The pair interviewed hundreds of civil rights leaders and lawmakers to catalog their concerns with Facebook, and then dug into Facebook’s existing practices and policies. Wednesday’s report marks the audit’s third and final installment, though Murphy and Cacace have agreed to continue advising Facebook in a capacity still to be determined.
The auditors are finishing their review at a time when Facebook’s relationship with civil rights organizations is at a low.
Many advocates are spearheading a month-long Facebook advertising boycott that has attracted the support of nearly 1,000 brands, including big names like Verizon and Unilever. They say the social network has failed to address hate speech and disinformation that disproportionately effects minority communities.
Boycott organizers left a meeting with Zuckerberg and other senior Facebook executives Tuesday feeling their demands are not being taken seriously. The audit published Wednesday did little to change their opinion.
"As Facebook continues to amass and consolidate power, the wellbeing and safety of our democracy is at stake," Color of Change President Rashad Robinson said in a statement. "And if Facebook won’t create rules for the platform that protect free elections and public safety, then Congress must intervene to ensure civil rights are protected."
Source: politico.com
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