Security was not addressed early enough, admits Facebook
Facebook issued a modestly self-critical statement stressing how much the company is investing in security. The statement came after a series of scrutinizing articles in the Wall Street Journal saying the company has not published a study with negative result for Facebook-owned Instagram and that high-profile users get special treatment when Facebook reviews their content.
“How technology companies grapple with complex issues is being heavily scrutinized, and often, without important context. There is a lot more to the story. What is getting lost in this discussion is some of the important progress we’ve made as a company and the positive impact that it is having across many key areas”, the company said in a blog post.
“We firmly believe that ongoing research and candid conversations about our impact are some of the most effective ways to identify emerging issues and get ahead of them.”
“In the past, we didn’t address safety and security challenges early enough in the product development process. Instead, we made improvements reactively in response to a specific abuse. But we have fundamentally changed that approach.”
“Today, we embed teams focusing specifically on safety and security issues directly into product development teams, allowing us to address these issues during our product development process, not after it.”
The company say it has 40,000 people working on safety and security, and has invested more than USD 13 billion in teams and technology in this area since 2016.
“Since 2017, Facebook’s security teams have disrupted and removed more than 150 covert influence operations, both foreign and domestic, helping prevent similar abuse. Our advanced AI has helped us block 3 billion fake accounts in the first half of this year.”
Facebook says its AI systems have gotten better and that it proactively is removing content that violates company standards on hate speech.
“We now remove 15x more of such content across Facebook and Instagram than when we first began reporting it in 2017.”
Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.
Our mission is to provide top and unbiased information for all professionals and to make sure that women get their fair share of voice in the news and in the spotlight!
We produce original content, news articles, a curated calendar of industry events and a database of women IT, Media and Advertising associations.
