Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The Facebook Users Union, an organization founded by Media Alliance and Global Exchange, is calling on Facebook users to raise awareness about hate speech or misinformation on the Mark Zuckerberg-founded social network Facebook.
Facebook Users Union claims that: "we deserve to have news where objective content is not drowned out by virulent and sensationalist content" based on false information and avoid hate speech. To do this, the organization proposes the creation of a kind of digital switch to "turn off" such content which, they claim, can be easily implemented and the decision lies solely with Facebook.
Although the petition indicates that this measure has been slow to be implemented, the initiative aims to prevent the creation of another disinformation bubble like the COVID-19 pandemic and the general elections held in the U.S. that culminated in the suspension of Donald Trump from several social networks, including Facebook, for at least 2 years after the violent attacks against the U.S. Capitol where the favorable result of Joseph Biden, now president of the U.S., was ratified.
"We deserve social media platforms free from attacks on our elections, free from pandemic misinformation, and free from threats to our physical safety," says the petition which can be signed at the link below: https://facebookusers.org/2021/03/20/tell-facebook-flip-the-switch-on-hate-and-lies/
"Facebook can and should build and turn on such a switch," reads the petition. In addition, they allude that it is "a crucial first step" to avoid the torrent of lies and hate that Facebook has perpetuated and flooded on its platform.
They point out that social networks, including Facebook, can implement such a measure to pause "viral content" as it checks for dangerous misinformation and incitement to hatred and violence; however, adopting and implementing such a feature opens the debate to possible biased censorship. On the contrary, the Facebook Users Union claims that "none of us want Mark Zuckerberg deciding what is true, what is false, what is hate speech and what is not".
They add that because of the new digital reality resulting from the COVID-19 quarantine, "curbing the super-dissemination of content has the potential to destabilize our political system, polarize our population, undermine public health and threaten our physical integrity".
Facebook's algorithmic amplification formulas, they point out, prioritize controversy, sensationalism and, with it, hate speech "and prey on personal vulnerabilities to drive viral content."
The formula is quite simple, as it is decided that only 0.01 percent of posts that exceed 10,000 interactions could be reviewed "once the circuit breaker is activated, the post would be 'paused' until it is reviewed by a human being. It would remain on the user's profile page, but could not be amplified."
They claim that this measure can be implemented in different markets and therefore applied in different languages.
