A big 2018 algorithm change was designed to encourage positive interaction with friends and family. Company documents show how it had the opposite effect, rewarding outrage and sensationalism. CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes if it meant harming the business.
How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation
The company’s AI algorithms gave it an insatiable habit for lies and hate speech. Now the man who built them can't fix the problem.
The Facebook whistleblower says its algorithms are dangerous. Here’s why.
Frances Haugen’s testimony at the Senate hearing today raised serious questions about how Facebook’s algorithms work—and echoes many findings from our previous investigation.
Facebook Wrestles With the Features It Used to Define Social Networking (Published 2021)
Likes and shares made the social media site what it is. Now, company documents show, it’s struggling to deal with their effects.
One Response to the Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Block Facebook's
With Facebook in a dominant position in hosting a huge portion of the world’s social conversation, we’ve been worried about the incredible power the company has accumulated and the risks that poses
New study shows just how Facebook's algorithm shapes conservative and liberal bubbles
Research conducted at the height of the 2020 election reveals new details about how Facebook's algorithms handle political content. But it suggests there are no easy fixes to political polarization.
Facebook's Big Move Toward the AfterWeb
Blow up your browser! The Next Big Thing is the AfterWeb. Facebook made a monumental announcement Monday that seemed as though it was designed to...
Mark Zuckerberg is excited to add more AI content to all your social feeds
Is AI the next era of social media?
553,000,000 Reasons Not to Let Facebook Make Decisions About Your
Another day, another horrific Facebook privacy scandal. We know what comes next: Facebook will argue that losing a lot of our data means bad third-party actors are the real problem that we should
Facebook lifts restrictions on calling women ‘property’ and trans people ‘freaks’
The social media giant Meta has loosened its public rules on hate speech as Mark Zuckerberg seeks to curry favour with Donald Trump
Bluesky & Open Social Media Tech
The Internet Isn’t Facebook: How Openness Changes Everything
Openness makes the Internet harder to govern — but also makes it resilient, innovative, and difficult to capture. Let's look at how the openness of the Internet both defines it and ensures its success.
2021 Facebook leak
In 2021, an internal document leak from Facebook (now Meta Platforms, or Meta) showed it was aware of harmful societal effects from its platforms, yet persisted in prioritizing profit over addressing these harms. The leak, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, resulted in reporting from The Wall Street Journal in September, as The Facebook Files series from journalist Jeff Horwitz, as well as the Facebook Papers, by a consortium of news outlets the next months.
Facebook’s Algorithm Is Boosting AI Spam That Links to AI-Generated, Ad-Laden Click Farms
Viral 'Shrimp Jesus' and AI-generated pages like it are part of spam and scam campaigns that are taking over Facebook.
Changes to the Facebook Algorithm Decreased News Visibility Between 2021-2024
Platforms, especially Facebook, are primary news sources in the US. In its widely criticized "War on News," Meta algorithmically deprioritized news and political content. We use data from 40 news organizations (5,243,302 Facebook posts, 7,875,372,958 user reactions) and 21 non-news pages (396,468 posts; 1,909,088,308 reactions) between January 1, 2016 and February 13, 2025 to examine how these changes influenced news visibility on the platform. Reactions to news declined by 78% between 2021 and 2024 while reactions to non-news pages increased, indicating targeted suppression of news visibility. Low-quality sources were especially suppressed, yet the 2025 end to "War on News" increased user reactions to news, especially low-quality ones. These changes do not reflect decreased news supply, Facebook user base, or interest in news over this period.
How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth (Published 2024)
The fledgling social media site has been flooded with new users since the election. It hasn’t all been easy.
Facebook’s Attack on Research is Everyone's Problem
Facebook recently banned the accounts of several New York University (NYU) researchers who run Ad Observer, an accountability project that tracks paid disinformation, from its platform. This has
