This is the breach that it seems impossible to close.

Since the whistleblower Frances Haugen slammed the door of Facebook by taking thousands of internal documents with her, the revelations follow one another on a daily basis.

Political destabilization, trafficking in human beings, incitement to violence… These “Facebook papers”, shared with 17 American media, draw the portrait of a company obsessed with its growth, which connects half the planet without having given itself the means to moderate the content.

And if Wall Street does not seem - for the moment - to be moved, this gigantic leak could give ammunition to the elected officials wishing to regulate the giant of Silicon Valley.

Attack on the Capitol: Facebook did not react to the rise of radicalization

In early November, a few days after the American poll, an analyst let his colleagues know that 10% of political content viewed by American users of the platform were messages assuring that the vote had been rigged, according to the

New York Times.

.

In an internal report titled "Carol's Journey to QAnon," a Facebook researcher created a fake account of a "conservative North Carolina mother."

From the summer of 2019, Carol Smith was exposed by the algorithm of the social network to a "torrent of extreme, conspiratorial and shocking content", including groups from the QAnon movement.

According to the Washington Post, a second whistleblower assures in his testimony that Facebook managers regularly undermined efforts to fight disinformation and hate speech for fear of angering Donald Trump and his allies, and not to not risk losing the attention of users, essential to its voluminous profits.

India, Afghanistan, Ethiopia… Moderation in difficulty abroad

The lessons of the atrocities committed in Burma against the Rohingya minority do not appear to have been learned.

Trafficking in human beings in Dubai, instrumentalization of cartels in Mexico, proliferation of hateful content in India and Afghanistan, lack of personnel in Ethiopia or Pakistan, pro-government censorship in Vietnam… According to the documents, Facebook devotes the vast majority of its moderation budget in the West and is unable to protect its users elsewhere.

The group is "well aware that a weaker moderation policy in non-English speaking countries makes the platform vulnerable to abuse by malicious people and authoritarian regimes," says the Washington Post.

Facebook aware of its dominance

While elected Democrats and Republicans begin to talk about serious antitrust regulations, Facebook publicly assures that competition from TikTok and Snapchat is a threat.

But in private, the company seems much more aware of its dominance.

According to internal documents, despite its erosion among younger people, Facebook is used by 78% of American adults.

“Once you have a user on your app, it's hard to lose it,” said a presentation.

These elements could be exploited by the gendarme of the competition, who tries to convince a judge to authorize lawsuits against Facebook.

Facebook threatened on under 30s

It's an open secret: Facebook is losing 13-17 year olds.

According to data from March, the number of teenagers using Facebook in the United States has fallen by 13% since 2019. And the fall could be as much as 45% in 2023, according to projections.

The daily time spent on the network also fell by 5% among those under 18.

These figures explain the company's eagerness to draw an Instagram Kids for 10-12 year olds.

But faced with the controversy, the project is, for the moment, on hiatus.

High-Tech

Attacked from all sides, can Facebook be regulated or dismantled?

  • Social networks

  • Mark zuckerberg

  • Facebook

  • High-Tech