Facebook News: Security Chief Alex Stamos Releases Long Thread on Twitter About Backlash
Facebook came under fire after it was revealed that they were the primary avenue in which Russian-linked ads perpetuated politically sensitive messages against sensitive topics, such race, and religion. Naturally, they were criticized. However, reports have revealed that Facebook's security chief has something to say to the critics.
Since the advent of the world wide web, many have posed questions regarding the security and privacy of its users. In the recent decade, the introduction of the social media sites has invited this debate on multiple occasions.
"I am seeing a ton of coverage of our recent issues driven by stereotypes of our employees and attacks against fantasy, strawman tech [companies]," Facebook's security chief Alex Stamos said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Nobody of substance at the big companies thinks of algorithms as neutral. Nobody is not aware of the risks. In fact, an understanding of the risks of machine learning (ML) drives small-c conservatism in solving some issues."
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Stamos' statement comes after news of how 500 inauthentic accounts were able to purchase almost $100,000 worth of ads during the U.S. Presidential Election. This quickly escalated into an issue that concerns fake news, and many criticized Facebook for developing algorithms that were politically neutral, which allowed the accounts to spread over the users' feeds.
According to Tech Crunch, Satmos currently leads the investigation on the said Russian advertisements, and he has emphatically stated that it would be greatly appreciated for journalists to approach Facebook's engineers who encounter the consequences of the algorithms every day.
Unfortunately, fans responded to his statement by saying that if journalists ever did talk to an engineer working for them, Facebook would fire those employees for handing out information without prior authorization.
The investigation on the issue is still being pursued. Fans are clamoring for an immediate answer, and although Satmos' point was made to help their employees cope with the backlash, fans wish that he would also take into account what the public perceives.
