People trying to break through a police barrier, on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. AP/Julio Cortez
Today if you search the term “Stop the Steal” or #stopthesteal on Facebook you won’t find the same content you did the day after the 2020 elections. The morning after the elections a group called “Stop the Steal” appeared in Facebooks’ groups section of their platform. This group would grow to several hundred people who shared content that many could find as being volatile. Computer algorithms tend to match people with things they like and find an interest in, however sometimes this has both positive and negative effects. A positive example could be someone interested in art that is being shown sales or likeminded groups. For me a negative effect I have personally experienced is being shown graphic images & videos related to news stories that trigger memories that are not always pleasant, in particular events about September 11th.
Frances Haugen said that the actions of Facebook has demonstrated a 'betrayal of democracy.’ In an article, posted on NPR, they explained many of the “Break the Glass” measures that Facebook employed during the period leading up to the 2020 elections to prevent and issues with their platform. It appears these methods such as limiting amounts of invites to groups and not suggesting users to join groups that were “civic groups”. After the elections the efforts put in place were shut down and after the “Stop the Steal” movement started, the response was not enough. In the end we saw how a group of like-minded people who a computer algorithm put together ended up causing the events of January 6th, as a result of Facebook stopping the protections put in place around the election itself.
The Washington Post wrote an article titled “The indisputable harm caused by Facebook” in which they reviewed many internal Facebook documents they called the “Facebook papers”. In these documents the Washington Post states, “Internal documents reveal that Facebook has privately tracked real-world harms exacerbated by its platforms, ignored warnings from employees about the risks of their design decisions and exposed vulnerable communities around the world to dangerous content.”
Gizmodo has made the leaked papers available so that you can read them and form your on views on the actions of Facebook. You can visit the page at https://gizmodo.com/facebook-papers-how-to-read-1848702919
Papers About the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
Mission Control Post Jan 6th IPOC
CTO Mike Schroepfer’s Jan 6th post
Jan 6th Freedom of Expression Survey
Facebook Insurrection Redacted for Congress enclosures (Part 1)
Facebook Insurrection Redacted for Congress enclosures (Part 2)
Employee Post: Rhetoric of Violence
The New York Times also has an article “The movement to reinstate President Trump has gone far beyond him — and now threatens the future of American elections.” In this article, the New York Times talks about some history around the “Stop the Steal” term how Roger Stone created a website in 2016 called “www.stopthesteal.org “, currently no longer active. One interesting thing that they did on the site was the use of all black and white photos, which gave a very dark feel to the article.
If you would like to find out more about Frances Haugen and her work, you can visit her website https://www.franceshaugen.com/
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