{"id":176180,"date":"2020-08-16T19:23:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T00:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/08\/16\/hate-for-profit-facebook-edition\/"},"modified":"2020-08-16T19:23:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T00:23:00","slug":"hate-for-profit-facebook-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/08\/16\/hate-for-profit-facebook-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate for Profit, Facebook Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>People studying Facebook&#8217;s algorithms have determined that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/16\/facebook-algorithm-found-to-actively-promote-holocaust-denial\">the method used to increase user engagement with the social media site actively promotes Holocaust denial<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>This is no surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook is in the business of eyeballs, and action is taken only when content is so contemptible that it impacts the bottom line:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Facebook\u2019s algorithm \u201cactively promotes\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/holocaust\">Holocaust<\/a> denial content according to an analysis that will increase pressure on the social media giant to remove antisemitic content relating to the Nazi genocide. <\/p>\n<p>An investigation by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.isdglobal.org\/\">Institute for Strategic Dialogue<\/a> (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, found that typing \u201cholocaust\u201d in the Facebook search function brought up suggestions for denial pages, which in turn recommended links to publishers which sell revisionist and denial literature, as well as pages dedicated to the notorious British Holocaust denier <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2017\/jan\/15\/david-irving-youtube-inspiring-holocaust-deniers\">David Irving<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The findings coincide with mounting international demands from Holocaust survivors to Facebook\u2019s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove such material from the site.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The ISD also discovered at least 36 Facebook groups with a combined 366,068 followers which are specifically dedicated to Holocaust denial or which host such content. Researchers found that when they followed public Facebook pages containing Holocaust denial content, Facebook recommended further similar content.<\/p>\n<p>Jacob Davey, ISD\u2019s senior research manager, said: \u201cFacebook\u2019s decision to allow Holocaust denial content to remain on its platform is framed under the guise of protecting legitimate historical debate, but this misses the reason why people engage in Holocaust denial in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDenial of the Holocaust is a deliberate tool used to delegitimise the suffering of the Jewish people and perpetuate long-standing antisemitic tropes, and when people explicitly do this it should be seen as an act of hatred,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Facebook&#8217;s basic algorithm is, &#8220;If it increases clicks, it makes us money,&#8221; which is why we see it supporting genocide against the Rohinga in Myanmar, Muslims in India, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Zuck don&#8217;t care, he never has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People studying Facebook&#8217;s algorithms have determined that the method used to increase user engagement with the social media site actively promotes Holocaust denial. This is no surprise. Facebook is in the business of eyeballs, and action is taken only when content is so contemptible that it impacts the bottom line: Facebook\u2019s algorithm \u201cactively promotes\u201d Holocaust &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[506,365,368,364,592,367,598],"class_list":["post-176180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bigotry","tag-business","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-genocide","tag-internet","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}