Computer bug highlights problematic content on Facebook

According to the special site The Verge, content that could be misleading or problematic has been incorrectly highlighted in Facebook user feeds in recent months, as it took six months for the computer to resolve the issue.

Joe Osborne, a spokeswoman for Meta, the parent company from Facebook, responded that the article, published on Thursday, “makes the size of the bug too large, which did not ultimately have a significant or long-term impact on the problematic content”.

According to The Verge, the group’s engineers wrote an internal report due to a “massive ranking failure” of the content.

In October, they noticed that members of the news feed’s algorithms, a third-party fact-checking program developed by Facebook, had more widely publicized specific content that was suspiciously identified by external media.

“The cause of the problem could not be ascertained, and the engineers repeatedly revived the wave drop a few weeks later until this ranking problem was resolved on March 11,” the article details.

But according to Joe Osborne, the incident only affected “a very small number of views”.

“Most of the news feed content will not be downgraded,” he explained, adding that there are other mechanisms in place to prevent users from being exposed to so-called “malicious” content. – “Other deductions, actual check alerts and the like. Withdrawals”.

AFP participates in “Third Party Fact-Checking” in more than 80 countries and 24 languages. Launched in December 2016, Facebook pays more than 80 media outlets worldwide, general or specialized media, to use their “virtual checks” on its platform, WhatsApp and Instagram.

If any of these outlets are diagnosed as incorrect or misleading, users are less likely to see it in their news feed.

And if they see it or try to share it, the platform suggests that they read the verification article. Those who have already shared the information will receive a redirect notification to the article. No post deletions. Participating media are completely free in the selection and treatment of their subjects.