Whistleblower file: Facebook is aware of global abuse but has no regulation

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For a long time, Facebook has touted the importance of its artificial intelligence (AI) system, combined with manual censorship, as a way to solve bad and dangerous content on its platform. Although machine detection is difficult to detect dangerous content from different angles, it can serve as a basic detection.

) M( o/ ~6 V* z0 V& tDocuments provided to the government by the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen show that languages ​​outside the United States, Canada, and Europe have always been a blank for automatic content review on Facebook. The company even lacks an artificial intelligence system to detect posts in other languages ​​on its platform.

For example, in 2020, a document showed that the company did not have a screening tool called "classifier" to find misinformation in Burmese or hate speech in Ethiopian language.
7 y  @5 R7 g4 Z) OReuters also discovered this month that Amharic, the most common language in Ethiopia, referred to different ethnic groups as enemies and issued death threats to them. There have been conflicts between the Ethiopian government and the rebels in the Tigray region for nearly a year, resulting in thousands of deaths and displacement of more than 2 million people.
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) t8 M) K7 B* C# k, W. k) ]4 a* BBut Facebook spokesperson Mavis Jones said that the company has active detection technology to detect hate speech in Amharic and Burmese, and has hired more people with "language and topic expertise."
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But in an undated document (according to a person familiar with the disclosure, the document is from 2021), Facebook employees also shared examples of spreading "fear and anti-Muslim speech" on Indian websites, including " Call for the expulsion of a large number of ethnic minority Muslims there"; the document disclosed: "We lack classifiers for Hindi and Bengali."
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Three former Facebook employees who have worked in the company's Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa over the past five years told Reuters that they believe that content review in their region is not a priority for Facebook management. They said that they did not invest enough personnel and resources.

2 B3 n7 Z9 h6 |! xFacebook declined to disclose the number of moderators in various languages ​​on the platform.