Facebook is taking on the bonfires of hate and misinformation it has helped fuel across the world, one post at a time. It says moderators are given ample time to review posts, but moderators say they face pressure to review about a thousand pieces of content per day. They have 8 to 10 seconds for each post, longer for videos. Because Facebook relies on outsourced companies to support its expansion, its leverage over them is limited. One hurdle to reining in inflammatory speech may be the platform itself which relies on an algorithm that tends to promote the most provocative content, sometimes of the sort the company says it wants to suppress. Without a full understanding of the platform’s impact, most policies are just ad hoc responses to problems as they emerge. Employees make a tweak, wait to see what happens, then tweak again — as if repairing an airplane midflight."
At www.nytimes.com
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