Following recent-ish revelations that Meta used a front group to run a disinformation campaign on Facebook opposing regulations the company publicly supported, and last year's news that Meta's allowing climate-denying-election-stealers to run rampant on Facebook because it's run by climate denying election-stealer Joel Kaplan, one might wonder what's left to expose about a website that's quickly becoming little more than a billboard for disinformation.
A piece from Gizmodo last week highlighted all the different climate conversations that were leaked in the Facebook Papers documents, and while there weren't necessarily game-changing bombshells, there were some amusing moments from Facebook staff worth calling out.
For example, Facebook uses its Climate Science Information Center as a shield against allegations that its algorithm amplifies climate disinformation, but Facebook's own internal reporting found, per Gizmodo, that "the site was an unambiguous failure" because "in the U.S. alone, two-thirds of users forgot the center even existed" when asked if they remembered visiting. Facebook has a clear problem with trust in the U.S., as "Americans were uniquely distrustful of information when they knew that it came from Facebook."
Another fun nugget is confirmation that since they weren't getting any answers from Facebook leadership, embarrassing the company in the media is the only thing leadership responds to. The leaked coverage in the press is "frustrating to read," one commenter said, "and puts me into a really awkward position where I have to side with leakers. Since we still haven't got an internal response about the last incident, it appears that the pressure from the outside is indeed the only way to get an answer or drive any meaningful change." Sounds right to us!
The discussions also reveal that, perhaps unsurprisingly, former GOP operative turned Facebook's actual boss Joel Kaplan isn't the only one who thinks disinformation is fine on the platform. It also shows that many others disagree.
A particular issue is coverage of Facebook overturning fact checks and creating loopholes for disinformation to spread as long as it's categorized as opinion content. "What The F****!" one rightfully outraged employee self-censored, "Are we not seeing in real time the impact of letting science mis- information ravage our country? Our Fact Checking systems mean nothing if they can just be overruled." Fact check: true!
But then a giant doofus undercuts the fact checks of climate disinfo, saying they are "by people that do climate change work for a living. While they have good experience maybe, they also have a conflict of interest in that they make their livings arguing the opposite viewpoint."
Not to be biased, but wouldn't the people whose livelihoods depend on spreading climate disinformation also have just as significant a bias to complain about fact checks being biased?
No, apparently bias only works one way at Facebook: in favor of climate disinformation. Employees discussed an example of Facebook failing to enforce its policies and overruling a fact check of climate disinfo, and that a climate fact check was "biased" because the companies "stakeholders" (who employees wanted to know the identity of) consider it "opinion and a debate within the scientific community."
As a result, one person had "already been sent [an article about the problem] a few times by former academics colleagues who work on climate change misinfo. They are livid."
We sure were! But here's the fun part - one of the employees is "married to one of those climate change misinfo academics and got a lot of side-eye this morning." Ouch, not only is Facebook breaking brains, democracy, and the climate, now it's also causing marital strife!?
It's not just personal feelings and marriages either, another person said they "would like an answer to this and as a sales person on the front lines with Microsoft, I am also being asked about this by my clients. What happened in this particular case and in other climate related reversals? What is the point of having independent fact checkers if we intervene?"
Finally, there's a great discussion about how climate change is absolutely an immediate harm, on par with COVID-19, and should therefore be treated with similar scrutiny, which was not unanimous, but showed that there are certainly some climate-conscious Facebook staffers.
In fact, one, on the last of 33 pages, stole our heart!
Hey guys, check it out: I hear that the Tobacco Institute has some experts ready to weigh in that cigarettes don't cause cancer, and some ‘stakeholders’ view this as a ‘debate within the scientific community’. Does Joel Kaplan know about this? I'm sure he'll need to weigh in.
So dear, sweet, well-meaning and climate-concerned employees at Facebook and Meta (and any other platform), and/or any of your spouses who may be reading this and feeling like "pressure from the outside" is the only way "to drive meaningful change" at the company: please get in touch! We'd love to chat!