The publication of the so-called “Facebook papers”, a compendium of documents published by a consortium of seventeen media including CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, once again put the finger on the sore spot. the paper of Hate vending machine that the popular social network has become.
The new revelations added new details to the leaks of former company employee Frances Haugen published weeks ago in The Wall Street Journal and repeated in separate sessions before the US Congress and the British Parliament.
It is now known that the company’s policy of putting its profits before misinformation, lack of control and the absence of internal precautionary measures influenced the violence of the Trumpist hordes that stormed the Washington Capitol on January 6, 2020.
According to the documents, after the US presidential elections last November the company fell into neglect and deactivated the precautionary measures that had been taken to avoid chaos on election day. Many of the workers who, in the months before the elections, had been part of the prevention team against false news and hate content, took leave of absence or changed positions and dozens of regulations adopted to avoid chaos in the city were reversed. electoral journey.
The new revelations revealed that the social network hardly devotes resources to combat false information outside the United States, and its effectiveness is almost nil in developing countries such as India, at this time the country with the most Facebook users in the world .
A report prepared by the company itself, realizes that in 2020 84% of actions against false information on Facebook and Instagram (owned by it) occurred in the US, despite the fact that the vast majority of its users are located outside of that country.
Among other information, the “papers” provide more details on the lack of resources allocated by the company to eliminate hate speech, and indicates that two years ago the company reduced the time that human moderators spend reviewing complaints from users. users for this reason.
But nothing, at least so far, has been said in the new documents about the use of Facebook as a media weapon against those nations that are not to the liking of the United States government.
The complaint of such business conduct was already made a few years ago by another former Facebook employee, Jaron Lanier, in his book “Ten reasons to delete your social networks immediately.” In the chapter entitled “The Arab Spring” the author points out:
“The Arab Spring was an auspicious occasion for Silicon Valley to enthusiastically congratulate itself. We take it upon ourselves: the ‘Facebook revolution’ and the ‘Twitter revolution’ were common expressions at the time. in front of big screens to watch the kids in Cairo’s Tahrir Square confront a despotic government, and we fell in love. We celebrated that ordinary citizens used social media to inform NATO forces about what the objectives should be of their airstrikes. Social media put a modern army within reach of normal social media users. “
Although ten years have passed since the Arab Spring, Facebook’s policy in this regard has not changed much, at least as far as Cuba is concerned.
This is at least corroborated by someone who is probably one of the few people who agrees with the use of Facebook as an instrument to incite hatred and terrorism: the Cuban cybermercenary Yoani Sánchez.
According to the blogger, a character invented during the Bush administration to serve as a megaphone for anti-Cuban propaganda on social networks: “When the protests began in Cuba on July 11, Facebook accounts and their ability to broadcast the demonstrations live were the fundamental elements for a gagged population for more than a century it will find its voice. The confluence that had been created in cyberspace, in a country where the right of association is severely limited, broke the barrier of mistrust and fear that had paralyzed citizens until that moment ” .
And in his comment published by the German chain Deutsche Welle, so that no one doubts the subversive role that Facebook’s hate machine plays against Cuba, he adds:
“Social networks and instant messaging services have continued to be the fundamental scene of the rebellion. The Archipelago platform, the main organizer of the civic march called for next November 15, has used the potential of the digital group to unite more 30,000 members. For them Facebook has been the only chance to meet and discuss. “
The “civic march” to which the “independent journalist” alludes also pretends to be a reissue of the “rebellion”, that is, of the violent actions that occurred on July 11 in Cuba convened via the internet by the “voice” of the imperial master in order, opportunistically and cowardly in the midst of a world pandemic, to increase and justify the blockade that that country has maintained against Cuba for more than sixty years. Another attempt to implement, ever successfully, an Arab spring on the Island.
His faith in the ability of Facebook algorithms to hack minds with hate merchandise is shared by the annexationist anti-Cuban mafia in Miami, which after the events of July 11 has not stopped asking President Biden, in addition to a military intervention on the island, to implement a plan to offer free internet to Cubans to supposedly combat the “censorship” of the “regime” of Havana.
In reality, since the days of the Iranian Green Wave, the blogger and her employers – with the help of Facebook’s “unbiased” profit voracity and other social networks– They dream of establishing “regime change” on the island and the prosperity of the “peaceful democracies” that today reign in countries like Libya and Syria.
