Another Facebook employee has called it quits due to the company’s perceived failure to act on hateful and violent content, BuzzFeed reports. The data scientist, who worked at Facebook for two years, said internal forces were propping up the production of hate content making attempts to stop it unachievable and that, as a result, it was embarrassing to work there. A number of other employees have left this year due to its inaction on tackling hate content.
Facebook received backlash after taking a neutral stance on some of the platform’s more sensitive issues, prompting some of its employees to organize a digital walkout against the company back in June. The company’s internal fallout eventually led to certain key employees leaving the company. Ex-Facebook engineer Timothy Aveni announced his resignation publicly within the same month and that was followed by the resignation of another software engineer, Ashok Chandwaney, a few months later.
Now, yet another employee has left feeling dejected about how the company is operating. According to BuzzFeed, the ex-Facebook data scientist, who asked not to be named, was part of a team that monitors and reduces violence and incitement on the platform. Despite such a team being in place, they said Facebook was not doing enough and provided data to support their claims.
Facebook’s Hate Speech Problem
Despite Facebook’s attempts at clearing up its feed by displaying nicer news, employees are still voicing their concerns or leaving the company. The former Facebook data scientist claims that about 1 out of 1,000 pieces of content posted on the platform violates the company’s policies against hate speech but that less than 5 percent of that content was being deleted. Facebook’s Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen disputed the figures in a tweet and the platform has made changes aimed at addressing hate-speech, but its efforts have been met with a mixed response.
Aside from employees leaving Facebook and raising questions about Facebook’s efforts against hateful content, the company has recently been entangled in a legal dispute over a number of its acquisitions. The Federal Trade Commission is vying to reverse Facebook’s purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp over claims of illegal monopoly, although While Facebook has strongly rejected the claims, it is more negative publicity for the social media giant, which is fighting fires on a number of fronts.
