Facebook's "we'll do better" line simply won't cut it anymore
Right-wing terrorists are organizing on the platform with near-impunity
Sree’s Sunday Note newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague).
Scroll down for Read Something; Watch Something; and a weekly tech tip from Robert S. Anthony (@newyorkbob).
TUNE IN: Sunday #NYTReadalong at 8:30 am ET w/ New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly (@lizadonnelly; that’s her BLM Twitter header above) and the Daily Global Covid19 Show, 9 pm ET w/ Sunday Positivity w/ HEAF CEO Ruth Rathblott (@ruthrath). Watch live or later.
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The police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI, last week set off a new wave of protests and brought renewed focus to the still-ongoing protests in Portland and elsewhere.
The protests are also bringing out waves of right-wing militias and self-described counter-protesters — who seem intent on causing as much chaos as they can by driving through lines of protesters, pepper spraying and macing at random, and even killing people. In Kenosha, a child — a 17-year-old child I will not name — shot and killed two people who were protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake, and maimed another, with an AR-15. He’s being PRAISED in right-wing circles as a “defender” of the city, and it’s clear that this is just starting.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but Facebook keeps coming up in this conversation, and the company keeps getting it wrong. Ryan Mac (@rmac18) at Buzzfeed has been all over this story — a story that now comes part-and-parcel with social or political tension in America: Facebook is the organizing place for these terrorist groups, and the company refuses to take this seriously.
According to Mac’s reporting, and reporting from The Verge, a group calling itself the “Kenosha Guard” had set up an event on Facebook, encouraging people to come to Kenosha to “defend the city” from protesters. A few hours later a high school student was being arrested for murder. Facebook took everything down and then gave a mushy apology that blamed contractors for the oversight.
From Mac’s report:
During Facebook’s Thursday all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg said that the images from Wisconsin were “painful and really discouraging,” before acknowledging that the company had made a mistake in not taking the Kenosha Guard page and event down sooner. The page had violated Facebook’s new rules introduced last week that labeled militia and QAnon groups as “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” for their celebrations of violence.
The company did not catch the page despite user reports, Zuckerberg said, because the complaints had been sent to content moderation contractors who were not versed in “how certain militias” operate. “On second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that was responsible for dangerous organizations recognized that this violated the policies and we took it down.”
And a follow up from yesterday:
Praise for the shooter is all over Facebook right now as I write this. Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) pulls no punches in her piece for The Guardian:
Facebook needs to spend an amount of money on par with the GDP of a small country and address this right now. The awfulness on display in Kenosha and Portland by right-wing agitators is beyond words, but I feel like we’re coming to a seminal moment for Facebook.
The platform is massive, global, and remains something crucial for probably millions of businesses — large and small — around the world. It’s an important part of my own business. At Digimentors (@digimentors), we produce events built on Facebook, manage and participate in dozens of groups dedicated to digital media and so much more, and it remains a place most organizations “need” to be.
What’s more, I truly believe Facebook is generally a good thing. We hold the generally good things in our lives - including America itself - to higher standards. The toxicity shines so brightly because it should — it should be in the headlines, it should be talked about. These are crucial matters that get to the heart of our society. But most Facebook users just post banal things, follow things they’re interested in, and chat with people, and that’s about it.
The question is whether the platform will actually start paying a price for its repeated misses on issues of hate, racism, misinformation, election tampering, and more. The PR will continue, calls to break up the company are getting louder, some advertisers are boycotting, and I know a lot of people in my orbit simply refuse to use the platform or use it very sparingly.
I use Facebook, on the whole, it makes my life better, and I see so many positive things there. But the company is doing a terrible job at the things we are pointing out and it’s high time to hire real, full-time editors and moderators. Thousands of out-of-work journalists in these roles would make a real difference.
In other news, Facebook’s stock price is up roughly 50% over the last six months.
- Sree
Read Something
Facebook is ground zero for the home stretch of this year’s presidential campaign. Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) follows this as closely as anyone — and routinely notes how right-wing and far-right voices dominate even as Trump complains about censorship there. His deep dive in this piece is a must-read.
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Tech Tips w/ @NewYorkBob: Zoom On! Amazon, Facebook and Google Smart Displays to Get Smarter
Each week, veteran tech journalist Robert S. Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him on @newyorkbob.
In March, I tweeted a gentle suggestion that Amazon, Facebook and Google make their smart displays more useful during this work-at-home pandemic by allowing them to videoconference with each other, not just their corporate siblings. Seems like someone was listening.
Zoom Video Communications, Inc., purveyors of the most popular video conferencing platform of the moment, recently announced that its Zoom for Home software would be coming to Google Nest Hub Max, and some Facebook Portal and Amazon Echo Show smart displays, via a free software update. Aside from relieving a laptop from endless Zoom meeting duty, these smart displays are designed for videoconferencing in the first place and offer some nifty features.
For example, the camera on Facebook Portal devices follows the user, which means you’ll still be visible to others as you slouch or reach for the coffee cup. Amazon and Google smart display users will be able to join Zoom meetings with voice commands like “Alexa, join my Zoom meeting” or “Hey Google, join my next meeting.”
Facebook Portal devices, except Portal TV, will get the Zoom update in September while Google Nest Hub Max and some Amazon Echo Show devices will receive it later in the fall, according to Zoom.
Listen to Something
It seems like the NBA is miles ahead of other major sports on social justice and activism-related issues. This is a smart discussion on the immediate strike after the Jacob Blake shooting. You can find “Hang up and Listen” with Joel Anderson (@byjoelanderson), Stefan Fatsis (@stefanfatsis), and Josh Levin (@josh_levin) on all major podcast platforms.
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Watch Something
The losses of 2020 just keep piling up. I remember using exactly this section in this newsletter in 2018 to share a video of fans reacting to the importance of Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and what it meant to non-white people to see non-white superheroes. This clip of Boseman discussing his meeting and writing with kids with cancer is now even more poignant than it was at the time, knowing that he was battling cancer and facing his own uncertainty. Just an incredible loss. [My 17-year-son, Krishna (@KrishnaSreeniv) shared his thoughts as well.]
Odds & Ends
🗞 Sundays are busy at Digimentors. 8:30-10:15 am ET, we read the print edition of the NYT out loud for you to watch live or later. 9-10 pm ET, we interview generally positive people to put some pep in our step as we go into the new week. Today’s shows:
Sunday #NYTReadalong at 8:30 am ET w/ New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly (@lizadonnelly)
Daily Global Covid19 Show on Scroll Global, 9 pm ET w/ Sunday Positivity w/ HEAF CEO Ruth Rathblott (@ruthrath). Watch live or later.
The Readalong is followed Sundays 11 am-noon ET by a new medical show I’m co-executive producing with surgeons Sujana Chandrasekhar, M.D. (@DrSujanaENT), and Marina Kurian, M.D. (@MarinaKurian), called She’s On Call (watch live or later).
The Sunday #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Muck Rack and Strategy Focused Group. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email us at sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.
🎧 Every Saturday, I host a call-in show on WBAI 99.5FM (@wbai) - "Coping with Covid19" - focused on being helpful, hopeful, and focusing on the pandemic's effects on society’s most vulnerable. Listen live Saturdays from 12-2pm EST, or later. And, of course, call in or tweet questions for us using the #wbaisree hashtag! Listen to this week’s episode here!
📺 A reminder to watch my Daily, Global Show on Scroll Global. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn something every time. We’ve had 170+ shows and 300+ guests - and 1m+ viewers. Check out the archive and please subscribe to my YouTube channel. And/or sign up for my WhatsApp alerts list (it’s not your typical WhatsApp group, just a text when I’m live!). We are in partnership with Scroll.in, one of India’s best news and culture websites.
Recent highlights:
Sapphire, whose novel became Oscar-winning “Precious” (she’s newly on Twitter!)
Dr. Keiji Fukuda of HKU, former pandemics expert at WHO & CDC
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