【2017 Archives】

In a Wednesday earnings call017 Archives Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a promise to cease promoting political and civic groups, globally, for the long term. You'll forgive us if we have trouble believing him.

Zuckerberg first suggested his company would stop temporarily recommending political groups to Facebook users in October ahead of the looming U.S. presidential election. Wednesday's announcement makes that promise a permanent one and expands it.

"We plan to keep civic and political groups out of recommendations in the long term, and we plan to extend that policy globally," the CEO noted Wednesday.

In October, the move by Facebook appeared to be in response to data showing that Facebook recommendations pointed users toward extreme political groups — like those, for example, related to the deadly Kenosha shooting. Notably, according to reporting from the Markup, Facebook (surprise!) failed to keep its word.

But contrary to Facebook's claims, The Markup found the platform continued to recommend political groups to its users throughout December. We found 12 political groups among the top 100 groups recommended to the more than 1,900 Facebook users in our Citizen Browser project, which tracks links and group recommendations served to a nationwide panel of Facebook users. Our data shows Facebook also continued to recommend political groups throughout January, including after it renewed its promise not to on Jan. 11.

In other words, Facebook has already shown us it's either unwilling or unable to stop recommending political groups to its users. A global scale, and all the challenges that come with that scale, will likely only complicate an already bungled promise.

SEE ALSO: Congress blasts Facebook's algorithm as rotten to its core in scathing letter

Supposedly, according to Zuckerberg, Wednesday's announcement was at least partially inspired by the internal revelation that "people don't want politics and fighting" to take over their Facebook experience. However, it notably comes less than a week after two members of Congress wrote the CEO directly, calling out Facebook's algorithmic amplification as a radicalization engine.

"Perhaps no single entity is more responsible for the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories at scale or for inflaming anti-government grievance than the one that you started and that you oversee today as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer," reads the letter. 

It seems like Zuckerberg got the letter.

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