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Ethical Design

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Unsafe Content, Misinformation, and Harassment

3:39 with Hope Armstrong and Michelle Zohlman

We'll look at the ways in which digital products can harbor unsafe content, misinformation, and harassment.

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    MICHELLE: Apps with user-generated content often rely on user policing. 0:00
    On Facebook, you can report inappropriate or abusive content. 0:04
    The content review team reviews the offending content and 0:09
    conducts disciplinary action if it is deemed to violate the policies. 0:12
    The burden of finding harmful content is shifted to users because Facebook 0:17
    doesn't want the responsibility of proactively policing it themselves. 0:21
    But content moderation is a colossal task and 0:26
    unsafe content can trigger the people reporting it. 0:29
    In the book Behind the Screen, Sarah T. Roberts explores the emotional toll that 0:33
    content moderators endure as they review thousands of offensive material daily. 0:39
    According to a speech Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave in 2019, 0:45
    there is some preemptive action. 0:49
    Facebook's AI systems identify 99% of the terrorist content 0:52
    which is blocked before anyone sees it. 0:57
    Per Facebook's reporting, 80% of all hate speech acted on 1:00
    by their platform was flagged by algorithms in 2019. 1:04
    Granted, that doesn't include user flagged content that results in no action, 1:08
    and the algorithms only cover 40 languages worldwide. 1:13
    The remaining languages only have users reporting content and 1:18
    human moderators reviewing those flags. 1:22
    When asked why Facebook doesn't do more to moderate its content, Zuckerberg argues 1:25
    the danger of limiting free speech as it blocks out potentially positive voices for 1:30
    social change. 1:35
    Instead, he focuses on eliminating fake accounts known 1:36
    as bots that spread misinformation and hate. 1:40
    Facebook's AI systems can now detect clusters of fake 1:44
    accounts that aren't behaving like humans. 1:47
    Government regulation can force companies to do 1:51
    more to manage their platform's content. 1:54
    Germany has a law against hate speech, and this has resulted in Facebook 1:56
    doing extra work to filter hateful content from users in Germany. 2:01
    HOPE: Content heavy apps also struggle with the spread of misinformation. 2:05
    Twitter has begun evaluating tweets based on their propensity for harm. 2:10
    Tweets that contain potentially misleading content such as this one 2:16
    mentioning COVID-19 are labeled with a link to trusted information. 2:20
    Tweets suspected to be inaccurate, not credible, or 2:25
    have more propensity for harm are marked with a warning. 2:29
    Tweets confirmed to be false are removed. 2:33
    On a final note, 2:37
    online harassment is rampant across social media apps and forums. 2:38
    We don't have time to get into it, but there's cyberstalking, 2:44
    fake impersonations, catfishing, doxxing, trolling, and so on. 2:49
    Block Party is an app to help with online harassment. 2:54
    It mutes accounts on social media that are likely to send unwanted content. 2:58
    The lockout folder contains the filtered content and is accessible anytime. 3:03
    There's also the Helper View which enables a user's friends to review their 3:09
    lockout folder content and take action on their behalf, such as blocking users. 3:15
    Check out the teacher's notes for further reading. 3:21
    While many apps have anti-harassment rules, they are inconsistently enforced. 3:24
    We need better policies, procedures, and tools to mitigate and 3:29
    prevent harassment and abuse. 3:32
    Even more, we need people like you to advocate for change within. 3:34

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