Whistleblower says Facebook's algorithms generate extremist videos

Facebook has an automation problem. 

A confidential whistleblower complaint filed to the SEC and obtained by the Associated Press claims that the social network has been generating extremist videos, pages, and content by default. The content in question, which reportedly was manufactured entirely by Facebook independent of any specific human, ranges from white supremacist pages to pages for Al-Qaida.

Yeah, it's bad. 

According to the AP, Facebook's tools "[scrape] employment information from user’s pages to create business pages." When those users' pages contain extremist content, like, for example, pictures of suicide vests or mushroom clouds detonating in cities next to the words "The Islamic State" (two real examples), those images can make their way into Facebook autogenerated content.   Read more...