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Follow him on Twitter or contact via secure email at the address Politics Tech Censorship Facebook Free Speech Online Mark Zuckerberg Masters of the Universe Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Between July and December of 2020 Facebook removed more than 2,200 posts by Vietnamese users compared to just 834 posts in the first six months of 2020.
Insiders also told the Washington Postthat Zuckerberg caved to the Vietnam government’s censorship demands in 2020 in an effort to avoid losing an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue from the country.Īhead of a Vietnamese election in 2020, Zuckerberg reportedly decided to censor Facebook posts from anti-government pages as he argued that Facebook going offline in Vietnam would do more harm to free speech than actively censoring government critics.
It has been painful to observe.”Įmployees further alleged that Zuckerberg himself regularly intervened to alter decisions that may negatively affect user growth. The employee added: “Personally, during the time that we hesitated, I’ve seen folks from my hometown go further and further down the rabbithole of QAnon and Covid anti-mask/anti-vax conspiracy on FB. The employee stated that Facebook was “willing to act only after things had spiraled into a dire state.” One employee working on Facebook’s “Integrity” team complained in August of 2020 that proposed design changes that may limit users’ exposure to extreme content was being consistently sidelined in favor of any efforts that may increase user engagement.
On top of this, Facebook is directly paying Breitbart News’s competitors, establishment media conglomerates including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times - while offering no such compensation to Breitbart News.Īnother Facebook staffer wrote: “We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now out of control.” According to a report from the Atlantic, many employees spent months attempting to raise the alarm about what they believe are engagement-focused algorithms pushing users towards extreme and negative content but were ignored by higher-ups at the firm. The story also revealed that Breitbart News is relegated to a “second tier” of the platform’s News Tab, where it gets less exposure than its corporate establishment competitors. Facebook eventually removed one of the tools while keeping the other - but it is unclear which of them had the most impact on traffic.Īccording to the Wall Street Journal, one of Facebook’s researchers feared, “We could face significant backlash for having ‘experimented’ with distribution at the expense of conservative publishers.” The Journal highlights internal Facebook research showing that if both tools were removed, it would increase traffic to Breitbart News by 20 percent, the Washington Times by 18 percent, Western Journal by 16 percent, and the Epoch Times by 11 percent. The company introduced two tools after the 2016 election that disproportionately harmed conservative publishers. Mark Zuckerberg deep in thought (Drew Angerer /Getty)Īs Breitbart News reported this week, Facebook has suppressed the traffic of Breitbart News posts by 20 percent using tools designed for that purpose.īreitbart News senior tech reporter Allum Bokhari wrote: