To classify the objectionable content, Facebook will use artificial intelligence. Facebook was not originally created to be a company, he wrote. “The best solutions for improving discourse may come from getting to know each other as whole people instead of just opinions – something Facebook may be uniquely suited to do”.
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“In India, Prime Minister Modi has asked his ministers to share their meetings and information on Facebook so they can hear direct feedback from citizens”, Zuckerberg wrote, explaining why this activity helps people connect more with the government.
In his letter, Zuckerberg flags off the conversation by defining the first step to make humanity more supportive. These days, individuals who lack direction are easily becoming radicalized by groups like ISIS and white supremacists that reach them through channels like social media. “Not overnight. It will take time and dedication from Facebook”.
The Facebook CEO also talked about inappropriate and appropriate content in his letter.
Take the matter of how Facebook treats news and the media.
Under “informed community”, Zuckerberg teased that Facebook is working on ways to help support journalism – something that has yet to seriously materialize. Facebook ignored this issue until after the US 2016 election. It’s a significant departure from Zuckerberg’s initial push back against the idea that fake news stories on Facebook influenced the outcome of the election.
Community standards. Zuckerberg makes it clear that he was stung by criticism of the site for taking down controversial material.
Now, the social media giant wants to expedite its efforts for building artificial intelligence tools to quickly and accurately recognize patterns that help better understand what’s happening across its communities.This also includes the recognition of what’s safe for certain individuals to look when they’re scrolling through their News Feed.
“The guiding principles are that the Community Standards should reflect the cultural norms of our community, that each person should see as little objectionable content as possible, and each person should be able to share what they want while being told they can not share something as little as possible”, he wrote. It pledges to identify news sources that provide a broad range of perspectives. The tough part for Facebook is managing fake news while at the same time presenting diverse viewpoints.
As well as raising concerns over misinformation, Mr Zuckerberg warned even more powerful malign forces could be released if information continues to be sensationalised and polarised online.
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Given that the monthly active users on Facebook (according to some estimates, Facebook had 1.86 billion monthly active users in the last quarter of 2016) is greater than the population of China (1.3 billion, and a country in which Facebook is banned); the amount of power (and data) that Facebook has to influence popular opinion is vast.
