Facebook Inc. pushed back on reports that the company was aware of the negative impact of its products, claiming that the allegations don\u2019t tell the whole picture.<\/p>\n
The issues of content moderation, mental health risks and misinformation are complex and defy simple policy solutions, according to a statement from Nick Clegg, Facebook\u2019s head of global affairs, posted Saturday. He said the series of articles published by the Wall Street Journal last week is based on incomplete information about difficult subjects.<\/p>\n
The Journal\u2019s reporting ignited another round of outrage in Washington, especially focused on what Facebook knew about the mental health impact that its photo-sharing platform Instagram has on teen girls.<\/p>\n
Several lawmakers have pledged to investigate the company and called on Facebook to scrap plans for an Instagram product aimed at children.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacebook understands the significant responsibility that comes with operating a global platform,\u201d Clegg said. \u201cWe take it seriously, and we don\u2019t shy away from scrutiny and criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The articles detailed how Facebook\u2019s content moderation system takes a light touch with millions of politicians and celebrities, even when they violate the platform\u2019s user guidelines.<\/p>\n
The reporting also revealed how human traffickers, drug cartels and political leaders take advantage of the platform\u2019s global reach and growth in developing countries.<\/p>\n
The Journal series cites leaked documents about Facebook\u2019s own internal research. Clegg said those studies are designed to \u201chold up a mirror to ourselves and ask the difficult questions about how people interact at scale with social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the Journal\u2019s claims are based on selective quotes and don\u2019t show the whole picture of a company trying to improve its products.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish there were easy answers to these issues, and that choices we might make wouldn\u2019t come with difficult trade-offs,\u201d Clegg said. \u201cThat is not the world we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook pushed back on reports that the company was aware of the negative impact of its products, claiming that the allegations don\u2019t tell the whole picture. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":410088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-414730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}