How Facebook’s Algorithms Fueled Anti-Muslim Hate in Myanmar

“Facebook… publicly acknowledged that in 2016-17, ‘We weren’t doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.’”

“While this statement may sound like an admission of guilt, in effect it shifts most of the responsibility for the spread of hate speech to the platform’s users and implies that Facebook’s sin was at most one of omission—failing to effectively moderate the content users produced. This, however, ignores the problematic acts committed by Facebook’s own algorithms.”

“The crucial thing to grasp is that social media algorithms are fundamentally different from printing presses and radio sets. In 2016-17, Facebook’s algorithms were making active and fateful decisions by themselves. They were more akin to newspaper editors than to printing presses. It was Facebook’s algorithms that recommended Wirathu’s hate-filled posts, over and over again, to hundreds of thousands of Burmese.”

“The Buddhist abbot Vithuddha gave refuge to more than eight hundred Muslims in his monastery. When rioters surrounded the monastery and demanded he turn the Muslims over, the abbot reminded the mob of Buddhist teachings on compassion. In a later interview he recounted, ‘I told them that if they were going to take these Muslims, then they’d have to kill me as well.’”

“In the online battle for attention between people like Vithuddha and people like Wirathu, the algorithms were the kingmakers. They chose what to place at the top of the users’ news feed, which content to promote, and which Facebook groups to recommend users to join. The algorithms could have chosen to recommend sermons on compassion or cooking classes, but they decided to spread hate-filled conspiracy theories.”

– from Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari,
brought to my attention by Delancey Place