Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance

Artificial Intelligence and Digital Platforms

Instructor: Professor Anuj Kapoor

Academic Associate: Manheer Suwalka

Submitted By: Group-5

Date: 18th June 2022

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, AHMEDABAD

Q1 What are the specific problems that Facebook needs to fix?
With the access to a vast amount of user data, Facebook has been on the way of becoming a
potential data handling monopoly in the past and the years to come. This interaction with data
poses some serious challenges that Facebook needs to cater to:
- Content Curation – Under the shadow of user experience enhancement, the users may be
exposed to targeted ads and information, and are shunned from major facts and news.
However, Facebook is also obliged to remove potential harmful content from the feed.
Hence, it is important to strike out a balance between the amount of content Facebook can
control and degree of freedom the users can enjoy while expressing themselves.
- Privacy – From setting up an account to interacting with quizzes, Facebook collects
multitudes of private information from users. The bigger question arises on the safety of data
from theft by external hackers and manipulation by internal or ally stakeholders. Enhancing
privacy will also affect the data access to developers and content curation ability of software.
- Data Governance – The governance laws in digital ecosystem are vague with the absence
of a governing body. This leads to discrepancy of data sharing, data handling and
permissible content guidelines among different tech companies and a loss of trust from the
user’s perspective.
Q2 If you were the CEO of Facebook, would you elect to govern more, govern less, or
stay the course?
Lack of governance is resulting in issues like fake news, targeted advertisements,
discriminatory posts. However, increasing too much governance like algorithm-based post
and comments reviewing, removing them can be seen as a step against user data privacy This
can reduce the utility of the social media as platforms where people could express
themselves. As Facebook CEO, I would try to manage this issues vs utility dilemma and from
its current state, I would elect to more governance implementing these steps
- Self-governance: Governance measures like identifying the users through SSN/e-
Aadhar can help in reducing fake accounts and help in mitigating cybercrimes.
- Credibility scores: Credibility scores can be assigned to accounts/pages based on the
authenticity of their previous posts.
- Cleaning mechanism: The company can remove accounts which are not complying
with their guidelines and having repeated incidence of flagged posts.
Q3 What specific actions would you take on: a) content curation; b) deep fakes; (c)
privacy; and, (d) political advertisement?
Content Curation – Allowing the sharing of harmful content will send a negative signal to
the shareholders as the company would permit fake information, lead to violent or unwanted
behaviour among the users and lose credibility. Hence, the company should focus on
identifying and curbing the harmful content while keeping away the racial, political or any
other biases and prejudices while formulating rules and making/training the software.
Deep Fakes – Deep fakes are a new way of impersonation and identity abuse, and requires
technical intervention to prevent posting and sharing of such videos. Apart from R&D
investments, the tech companies should also increase the use of human moderators to identify
any content which includes a famous personality and can create a great negative impact.
Upon identification, the actual user should be immediately notified, and the data should be
quickly removed with the user consent.
Privacy – The company should clearly state the data handling guidelines on the
website/application and maintain a tracking portal where the user is notified about where
his/her data is shared and for what purpose. The user should have the control to prevent or
retract the data anytime. This required introducing more transparency in the company.
Political Advertisement – The users should have ease in selecting what kinds of ads to see
or not. At the same time, Facebook should remove any bias towards a certain political party
while displaying ads.
Q4 Does the Oversight Board, proposed by Facebook, help solve Facebook's problems?
The oversight board can help Facebook in defining content policy in accordance with
enforceable laws, social traditions, and ethical values of Facebook. They can consider
people’s point of view above the company while determining content policy
However, there are several issues with the oversight board as mentioned here:
- Diversity: Facebook is operating across multiple countries, and they would be having
their own laws, cultures, and traditions. It would be quite difficult for one board to
understand the content related issues of all these geographies. It might be beneficial to
have region specific board and region-specific content policy taking guidance from
one central board.
- Workforce: It would be difficult for an 11 members board to address the quantity,
variation, and the frequency of the issues raised in timely and efficient manner.
- Compensation: The absence of clear compensation policy leaves opportunity of back
door manipulation by Facebook. If they are compensated by Facebook, their ability to
take any action not favourable to the firm would be reduced.
- Implementing abilities: In absence of any enforcing body, the company might not
follow the recommendation of the board.
- Stake: As the board members are not employees of Facebook, they will not be liable
for any key issues/gaps in the policy or their implementation.
Q5 What are the financial implications of your recommendations?
In the wake of demand of stringent policies, Facebook required investment in R&D and
collaboration with users and other stakeholders. It would also minimise the selective
exposure that creates echo chambers and hence the sales that are dependent on ads will
decrease as the ad platform will not be much effective. The user footfall will also reduce as
stringent privacy measures will limit the lucrative features. The platform maintenance
activities and identity verification mechanisms will increase the cost. The R&D expenditure
will also go up to introduce new sophisticated algorithms. As more human moderators will be
required, the SG&A will also increase. As a result, the profit margins and cash will reduce in
the short run. However, these all are an investment for the long term as the asset of the
company will increase. With the increased privacy and better content, the footfall will
eventually increase, thus strengthening the positioning and the sales of the company. The
company will required to cover up the negative effects of over control and reduced targeted
ads through better communication to users as well as advertisers.