Is Hate Speech Facebook’s Problem?

Facebook is back in the spotlight again having only just recovered from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the possible implications it had in swaying large scale public opinion through, honestly, good data science used in a corrupt fashion.

Facebook was blamed for the election of Trump and Brexit, due to their part in the misuse of Facebook app data by a British Political Consulting firm which used clever data science and tailored targeting to influence at scale via the platform.

But has Facebook truly learnt from its mistakes/ shortcomings or has it completely misjudged the changing landscape?

From the fallout of Cambridge Analytica came big changes to regulations, as common targeting practices like retargeting and profiling came under scrutiny. The cat was out of the bag and ironically the same thing that sustains these platforms (the sharing of information) was their temporary downfall. The digital industry scrambled to find ways to work within these new regulations, while the tech giants found ways to get back on the public's good side with updates.

While Twitter was quick(ish) to react, Facebook, which arguably got the majority of the blame, appeared to still resist or stall in its response. All the other tech giants quietly avoided the iron sights of the public, trying to avoid exposing how much data they actually had on the public and how little they were doing to tackle misinformation.

From the outset, it looked like Jack Dorsey had given Mark Zuckerberg a big fat checkmate when it comes to how his platform tackles the latest social uproar. 

Twitter banned all political adverts in 2019, while Facebook outright ruled out to censor his politicians or the news in a democracy. Jack Dorsey did not stop there and in May 2020 introduced a fact-checking label to tackle the distribution of ‘Fake News’, and controversy soon followed, when Twitter Fact Checked arguably one of the most powerful people on earth, Donald John Trump.

...and a few days later hid a post.

While the same post went unchecked on Facebook, and this isn’t the first time something like this has slipped through the net.

Facebook is now tackling one of it’s biggest PR crisis to date and is facing both internal and external pressure to change.

So what has been the implication of not following Twitter's actions?

Unfortunately, we live in a world where companies are allowed to operate without paying their fair share of taxes (some of which are part of the ‘stop hate for profit’ movement) and governments are too scared to tackle them. So, it's down to us the public to incite change, and what better way than to hit these companies where it hurts, THE BANK? A great example to illustrate this is the almighty Greta Thumburg and the Extinction Rebellion movement (remember that?).

And so, the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign was born, and it seems to be gaining momentum. Feeling the change in perception, after the POTUS response to the BLM movement, brands such as North Face and Patagonia announced they were pulling advertising spend on Facebook. The trend then branched outside of the outdoor wear market and the next thing you know other big brands Facebook media spend started falling like dominoes. 

What is Facebook’s stance and what are they doing?

Social media has given a platform for these movements to reach a global audience, with one of the most successful movements being #Metoo, which saw a string of high profile takedowns and quiet resignations which may never have been uncovered had the internet never been born. That’s because this wasn’t a new thing, at the risk of sounding like Trump, I believe the story was suppressed by the mainstream media because some of the people in charge were part of the problem. 

Mark Zuckerberg's argument, and one commonly shared in Silicon Valley, is, should a company with unelected members and global influence be moderating what people see, therefore controlling the narrative? And, if so, who should be regulating it, and by doing so, what would be the impact on free speech and democracy?

Facebook put itself in opposition to some news outlets in every nation, which choose what news suits their political agenda. Facebook's game plan for a while was to stay neutral and allow the free flow of news, real or fake, in the hope that the public was smart enough to not take everything at face value. Unfortunately, by taking this stance, the channel became a platform for the people with the most money or influence to spout their political views without conscience. And Facebook is profiting from this. This is why they introduced the transparency centre and all spending on political issues is open to the public.

But is it fair to say that Facebook has done nothing and is this movement fair? I attended a Facebook round table to find out and here are the key points.

• Facebook has zero-tolerance for hate speech - but this doesn’t mean zero occurrences. 89% of the content they remove for violating their hate speech policies is detected by their systems before anyone reports it to them.
• A European Commission’s recent report found that Facebook assessed 95.7% of hate speech reports in less than 24 hours, faster than YouTube and Twitter.
• Facebook is committed to continuing to make significant product investments to tackle hate, and their policy team is constantly reassessing their policies to make sure they draw the right lines.
• Facebook wants to make progress carefully and thoughtfully to ensure well-intentioned systems do not end up taking down legitimate counter-speech.
• Facebook launched the largest voting information campaign in American history, with the goal of registering 4M voters.
• Facebook has recently updated its policies that apply globally to fight hate speech, a crackdown on voter suppression and provide more authoritative resources to help voters. You can find more details on their actions to advance racial justice here.
• Facebook is investing heavily in moderating its platform and hired over 30,000 content moderators, security engineers, and have continued to evolve their policy. All of this depressed its net income growth from 61% year-over-year at the end of 2018 to just 7% as of last quarter of 2019.
• When Facebook discovers that a client's ads have appeared on content that violates its policy (including hate speech and misinformation) it actually reimburses that advertiser.

I personally think their actions say they are taking this very seriously and openly admit they have a long way to go, but civil rights groups are still not satisfied with the progress. 

Why does this matter to advertisers and Brands?

In the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, the digital industry took for granted how little the public knew about the use of data. Is it fair to say the same people know just as little about how much small businesses and brands rely on the likes of Facebook and Google?

The pressure to join a movement is nothing new and 99% of the time it's the right thing to do as ultimately it’s built on the current public perception, which is the foundation of morality. But sadly 50% of brands will do it for the right reason and the other 50% will do it even if it’s not what they stand for. 

When you look at the list of brands putting the pause the majority of these brands are big names. By joining the campaign they have gained huge amounts of publicity and with a good PR agency probably leveraged more exposure from this than if they had run Facebook ads for a month. Although some that have joined aren’t as large or well known and I would say that these brands have made a bigger sacrifice in a bid for change.

Unfortunately, for businesses that are currently suffering from the impact of one of the biggest pandemics the world has seen, this could not have come at a worse time. The majority of retail is currently in sale mode, in an attempt to claw back months of lost revenue.

With mounting pressure, a lot of brands will be thinking of shutting down Facebook activity. But ultimately what would the impact on their business be?

Pros:

1. Publicity: While this is not an ethical thing to do just to gain free publicity, there is no doubt that by doing so you would gain some, especially if you are a big brand.
2. Brand Safety: By shutting off ad spend you would avoid a possible backlash, therefore needing less community management and fewer public statements. 
3. Explore other channels: In the downtime, you could build on your neglected channel and build a more diverse digital plan.
4. Learnings: You can measure the impact Facebook has on other channels and therefore its importance.

Cons:

1. Loss of learnings: You would lose all learnings from your Facebook/Instagram campaigns. This will mean that when you turn these ads back on you will be spending money on the algorithm re-learning.
2. Loss of Traffic: If your business heavily relies on the Facebook ecosystem then the loss of traffic will have a negative impact on the bottom line.
3. Lack of good alternative solutions: Most businesses have invested a lot of resources in setting up their accounts and built up large followings and workflows that are Facebook-centric. This is for good reason, as most other social channels are just not up to scratch when it comes to reach and general capabilities especially dynamic advertising.
4. 0 time or resource: You can’t just set up a shop on a different channel straightaway. You most likely won't have the right content, tracking, billing or even plan to successfully do it. These things take time and need to be part of a long term plan, not just a month.
5. Reallocating the spend might not work: Depending on your digital mix it might not be as easy to just redistribute the spend to Youtube or Paid Search. These channels might either be at saturation point or just not relevant to your brand and therefore will not give you the same return on investment.

What do I think about these changes?

It’s clear to see that this isn’t going to go away soon and Facebook is taking this very very very seriously. Facebook is currently the easiest target for the media, but the problem is not Facebook’s alone, and this is a much wider issue and from the looks of it Facebook is the best of a bad bunch. 

The likes of Youtube and Tik Tok with large Gen Z users have exactly the same problem, if not worse when it comes to tackling hate speech simply because it's near impossible to moderate the number of posts. Google has little excuse for not putting the same amount of investment into tackling these issues considering their size, but this simply won't be feasible for up and coming social media sites.

Do I think that Facebook will bow to the pressure?

They already have and have been tackling this issue for years, working with over 100 organizations and charities to tackle both hate speech and misinformation.

Is it right to moderate free speech?

That’s not for me to decide, but for society as a whole. Social media has the power to provoke both negative and positive change, and technically, Facebook is already moderating what we see any way with algorithms. But without guidance from the government, which in most countries is democratically elected, moderation from unelected corporations could be either dangerous or good for society. By doing so it could even be used as a tool by governments to spread further doubt on the neutrality of the internet to push their own agenda through other channels.

How might things continue to change?

I would see this as a wake-up call for most brands on their dependency on Facebook and how fragile their marketing plans truly are. Facebook and Instagram are not going to be here forever -- remember Myspace? Like governments, social media is nothing without its population and while Facebook's numbers have increased as boomers have finally figured out Facebooks a thing, growth at the bottom end is flailing and Facebook is turning into a cash cow.

Most brands will be hesitant to change and diversify their social mix, partly due to shortcomings of Snapchat and Facebook’s ability to copy them making it more convenient for brands to keep all their budget in one place. But, by doing so you might be part of the reason Facebook doesn’t feel it needs to change, and you will be playing catchup when the giant eventually falls.

So, each brand has to weigh up the pros and cons of their business. I would say though that if you did choose to turn off and spend, do it because you believe in it, not because you have been pressured into it and if you do own it. It’s simply not good enough for brands to post a black box on Instagram to support Black Lives Matter and feel that their conscience is clean. If you believe there is an injustice and want to make a meaningful change, make it part of your brand DNA, live and breathe it internally and this will naturally be shown in your output.

And so I conclude my rant, I mean article. Feel free to disagree with everything I have said, question my sources and challenge my views. Even better, do your own research and join the conversation.

Sources and further reading: 

• https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/facebook-marketing/is-facebook-on-the-decline-for-gen-z-and-younger-millennials/
• https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/eu-code-conduct-countering-illegal-hate-speech-online_en#howitperforms
• https://www.stophateforprofit.org/participating-businesses
• https://mashable.com/2017/03/23/youtube-advertisers-hate-groups/
• https://www.businessinsider.com/report-facebook-started-bending-policies-trump-before-presidency-2020-6
• www.washingtonpost.com%2ftechnology%2f2020%2f06%2f28%2ffacebook-zuckerberg-trump-hate
• https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/20/facebook-suspended-tens-of-thousands-of-apps-after-cambridge-analytica.html
• https://about.fb.com/news/2020/07/facebook-does-not-benefit-from-hate/
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebooks-promises-for-protecting-your-information-after-data-breach-scandal/