This opus is part of Gizmodo ’s ongoing effort to make the Facebook Papers usable to the public . See the full directory of documentshere .
After Donald Trump ’s 2016 triumph , Facebook faced a tsunami of allegations blame its meat production , News Feed , for filling the brains of its user with false selective information . Scrutiny sharply intensify among lawgiver long convert of the company ’s responsibility to emboss outstate - affiliated trollsandother malicious groupsset on eroding electoral faith . Mark Zuckerberg , whose weapons platform received$81 millionfor ads on behalf of the two White House contenders , defensively derogate his own initiation : Within days of the termination , he separate a tech conference crowd it would be “ pretty crazy ” to seize Facebook — the earth ’s largest communications platform — was up to of influencing voter “ in any way . ” Ten months later , Zuckerberg wouldclaimto “ regret ” those words .
Soon after the off - the - cuff liberation , however , sources inside Facebooktold Gizmodothat political meddling had been a major concern at the caller for the proficient part of a year . High - level discussions over its approach to untrue news , disinformation , and other activeness aim at manipulating voter had been routinely held , the current and former employees articulate , anonymously out of fear of revenge . One author with direct cognition of the discussions hark back a likely update that employees believed would reduce the flow of “ fake or hoax newsworthiness stories . ” A slew of correct - wing pages had been flagged by Facebook ’s algorithmic moderateness system for habitually circulate falsehood , they said . Afraid of upsetting conservatives , however , Facebook had shelved the update , and many determination around the election were “ captivate up in that , ” the source read .
Facebook functionary refuse to confirm or deny the beingness of the update , or to even recognize that a disproportional amount of the misinformation arose from one side of the political spectrum . or else , a spokesperson said , “ We did not build and withhold any News Feed change base on their potential impact on any one political party . ”
Facebook insist at the time that accusations of political bias had no influence whatsoever over its decisiveness making . But look no further than the leak argument of its own moderators among its employees for grounds that it does .
Today , Gizmodo is publishing our third batch of theFacebook Papers — documents that , among other thing , shine a light on the company ’s reluctance to take action against known source of misinformation . Employees whose work appears in the papers repeatedly attribute decision like the shelved News Feed update to fearfulness that the caller would be present as favoring certain publications that , in some cases , its own users judge more informative . In picky , charge of free prejudice by Republican loss leader weigh heavy in debate over whether to improve News Feed or correct flaws in the ways Facebook prioritise journalism and other political content . charge of a bighearted slant controlling the company are describe in two papers as playact a essential role in decisions achieve during employee - lead efforts to minimize the frequency of propaganda and misinformation in people ’s feed .
Aninternal postdated August 2019 briefly depict the decision by Facebook to kill a News Feed update supposedly designed to prioritize “ in high spirits quality ” news . In this instance , Facebook obtained the underlying data point responsible for gauging the trustiness of news source by polling users . The party come to the decision not to tighten the flow of “ low quality ” newsworthiness to stave in off bearing from “ some quarter ” about “ perceived anti - conservative bias , ” according to the situation .
Asked about the discrepancy between the company ’s anterior call and the once - secret testimonial of its own employee , a Facebook spokesperson decline to comment .
In the same 2019 written document , Facebook employee estimated that the ship’s company had only take action against “ or so 2 % of the hatred speech on the platform , ” while conclude that misinformation , when noticed at all , often goes unnamed “ until after it has have a plenty of distribution . ” The most “ impactful abusive accounts , ” it says , continue to persistently sidestep easing . While employees generally have “ considerable allowance ” when it come to make decisions that affect “ a spacious range of capacity , ” the source publish , “ insurance concerns become importantly higher ” when politics enter the framing .
The text file take on new relevance in the political climate of 2022 . attempt by social media companies to minimize the spread of election - related hoaxes and delusive newsworthiness have spurred Republican leaders in several body politic to pursue newfangled laws around substance mitigation . jurisprudence authored inTexasandFloridahave been frame as endeavour by legislatures to protect users from being punished for holding unpopular political opinion . Last month , research worker at MIT and Yale debuted a paperfindingRepublicans on Twitter had , in fact , been “ much more likely ” to face suspension . ( This composition is a pre - print and has yet to be publish . ) At the same time , depth psychology show Republicans users had post misinformation onwards of the election at a rate “ well ” higher than their Democratic similitude . “ Thus , ” the researchers wrote , “ policy aimed at fighting misinformation in a nonpartizan way could have well ” explained the discrepancy .
Another Facebookdocument , dated August 2020 , speaks to the influence of its public recounting department over a policy already in burden , aimed at limiting political content more broadly across News Feed . The author give away that “ internal employee ” had started “ expressing uncomfortableness ” over the way in which this insurance was impose — specifically , that Facebook was continuing to throw in cognitive content into people ’s feeds stemming from pages drive “ extremely partisan subject matter . ”
A fix proposed by Facebook ’s news squad appear to have been shot down by both its PR department and the News Feed ’s own policy team . The concerns about fixing the job stemmed , the document ’s author write , from anticipated accusations of preconception brought by “ sure political entity . ”
Months prior to the 2020 election , while awash in allegation of censoring by a concerted Republican campaign against the company , Facebook began throttling the level of political content surfacing across the platform . Not all of these change were announced . A crush discharge from Sept. 2020 described such measures as banning political advert the calendar week before Election Day and adding label to posts stress to “ delegitimize ” the result . But no reference was made to restricting political content across the platform more generally . That was n’t disclosed until a week before the election , on the face of it a result of Mark Zuckerberg begingrilled under swearing .
These quieter efforts at curb political chattering appear to be marry to concerns about users quitting the political program over perpetual partisan bickering . A confidential report — publishedby Gizmodo this year — had warn in January 2020 that many users had begun associating Facebook with “ feelings of debilitation , discouragement , stress , and angriness . ” Many blamed the platform for “ strained relationships ” and for costing them lifelong friends . The company quoted one user as say Facebook had “ badly harmed ” many of friendships ; a consequence , they said , of “ how viscous , mean , and bias ” people ’s posts had become .
The Facebook Papers include tens of grand of leaked pages account , often in granular point , how Facebook ’s moderation system really operate . Some of these document , in fact , are so specific that certificate experts have warned against form them public , afraid bad actors will instruct secrets to skirt detection while break rules in place for good rationality . The records were first leave to Congress last yr byFrances Haugen , a Facebook product manager - turned - whistle-blower , and later obtained by century of journalist , include those at Gizmodo . Haugen offered blistering testimonial to Congress about Facebook ’s harms in October 2021 . In our first free fall , we shared28 filesrelated to the 2020 election and the Jan 6 . attack on the U.S. Capitol . In our second,37 file . Gizmodo haspartneredwith a chemical group of independent expert to review , redact , and publish the document responsibly .
Not one of the documents , however , points to any calculate confederacy aim at censor conservative voices . Far from storm Facebook to shun partiality , the fellowship ’s biggest accuser on Capitol Hill seem only to have achieve the opposite word .
20 May 2025: Ranking and News Feed documents
The Surprising aftermath to academic term and MSI triggered by Turning Off Video Autoplay on News Feed
In an effort to boost original broadcast posts ( OBP ’s ) on Facebook , one research worker try out turning off auto - play videos in News Feed . The investigator notes that the routine suggest a “ significant ” amount of video watch time on user ’ feeds is due to autoplay , and that while turning off autoplay on News Feed globally might be good for drug user wellbeing in the outline , it would be “ difficult ” to apply on a wide scale because of the quick reversal to metric like meaningful societal interactions ( MSI ) , and the loss of long school term .
One - Go Summary Post for Recent Goaling and Goal Metric Changes for News Feed
A Emily Price Post from other 2021 declare “ finish changes ” for metrics in the News Feed .
News Feed UXR Quarterly insight Roundup
A collection of various internal subject area and reports about News Feed that were conducted during Q1 2021 .
What Happens If We cancel Ranked Feed ?
An experimentation in which researchers switched some user ’s feeds from ranked to chronological . As it turns out : a chronological feed lead in users see to it more contentedness , as appraise by VPVs , and ad taxation jumped in turn . The author hypothesizes this is because people are frustratedly scrolling through their feeds and consider more ads as a result . Another theory : less compelling cognitive content on your News Feed imply fewer reasons to click away from it to profile and varlet .
News Feed Research : Looking Back on H2 2020
A retrospective on all of the News Feed related research that find in the second half of 2020 .
capacity from “ Political ” Pages in In - Feed Recommendations
Political Content in In - Feed Recommendations ( IFR )
Two documents detail a proposal for how the company can filtrate out semi - political content ( the exercise open is a non - political stake from Ben Shapiro ’s page ) .
In - Feed Recommendations HPM — April 15 2021
A list of some introductory ware updates to In - Feed Recommendations that conk out through in the first half of 2021 , include some tweak meant to boost sessions and screen time among stripling and immature adult .
tick hereto register all the Facebook Papers we ’ve eject so far .
