FACEBOOK SYSTEM APPROVES AD CALLING FOR PRESIDENT LULA’S KIDS

Facebook continues to deliver incredibly dangerous content in the form of advertisements.  The latest installment of the Meta social media platform’s failure to protect democracy or people comes from Brazil, which has been in the news for the election of President Lula da Silva and some very disturbing violence afterwards.  Fortunately, the ads calling for the murder of Lula’s kids never went live.  They were submitted by the nonprofit Global Witness, which ran a test of Facebook’s storied filters preventing violent advertising.  But the only reason the ads didn’t run is because they were submitted by a white hat.

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ADS SUBMITTED BY GLOBAL WITNESS, WHO WANTED TO TEST FACEBOOK ALGORITHM

Facebook’s analytical algorithm simply doesn’t work well, and seemingly never has.  Meta’s spokespeople just say that it is acting up again, and needs some fine tuning.  That appears to be an understatement.  If the system can’t catch an ad calling for the murder of a head of state’s children, a total overhaul is clearly needed.  Because Global Witness submitted not just one, but 16 test ads testing Facebook’s ad filters to prevent violent content.  Only 2 were rejected.  Some of the approved ads contained text in Portuguese that included “unearth all the rats that have seized power and shoot them”, “Death to the children of Lula voters” and “They should be in jail or dead and buried, not in the presidential palace.” 

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FACEBOOK ALLOWED 14 OF 16 VIOLENT ADS, BUT YOUTUBE BLOCKED THEM ALL

Global Witness quickly deleted the approved ads before they went live on Facebook’s system, and documented their test for publication.  Meta can attempt to claim this is yet another simple update that needs to happen to improve their system.  But Global Witness performed the same test at YouTube, which caught and rejected all 16 ads, and suspended the accounts Global Witness used to submit them.  But Facebook has to raise the bar, especially in Brazil, where social media posts recently instigated and enflamed violent demonstrations  by former President Jair Bolsonaro.