Facebook Says Wall Street Journal Allegations Are ‘Mischaracterisations’

Facebook on Saturday slammed a Wall Street Journal collection of articles concerning the social media firm’s platform as containing “deliberate mischaracterisations” and mentioned the articles “conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook’s leadership and employees.”

The Wall Street Journal, citing a overview of inside firm paperwork that included analysis experiences, on-line worker discussions and drafts of displays to senior administration, said that though Facebook researchers have recognized “the platform’s ill effects,” the corporate failed to repair them.

The Wall Street Journal articles say that Facebook exempted high-profile customers from some or all of its guidelines, performed down the adverse results on younger customers of its Instagram app, made modifications to its algorithm that made the platform “angrier,” and had a weak response to alarms raised by staff over how the platform is utilized in growing nations by human traffickers.

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vp of worldwide affairs, writing in a blog post, mentioned the Wall Street Journal’s tales “contained deliberate mischaracterisations of what we are trying to do, and conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook’s leadership and employees.”

Clegg referred to as “just plain false” an allegation that “Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company.”

Facebook, Clegg mentioned, understands the “significant responsibility that comes with operating a global platform” and takes it critically, however “we fundamentally reject this mischaracterisation of our work and impugning of the company’s motives.”

Clegg defended Facebook’s dealing with of posts on the COVID-19 vaccine and mentioned that the “intersection between social media and well-being” stays an evolving situation within the analysis group.

© Thomson Reuters 2021