WEBVTT - Click Like for Propaganda 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:07.320 When you're a journalist covering Facebook like I am, you 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.680 get a lot of messages from people who really just 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.160 wish they could talk to Facebook. This fall, I got several. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.840 A friend was worried that Facebook was marking her wedding 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.119 photos as spam. A man was worried that traffic to 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.279 his music fan page had gone down. Then I was 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.759 contacted on Twitter by a man in Sri Lanka. The 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.000 man's name was Oshallah. He said he used to work 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.760 for the current president, Mitro Pola Crisena. As proof, he 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:35.879 sent me his offer letter for the job with the 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.080 president working on social media for the state. He also 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.080 sent me a picture of his government I d Oshalla 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.400 said he'd been in contact with Facebook while he was 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.720 working for the government. He sent us a link to 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.040 a photo from a meeting that he said took place 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.800 in six It showed Oshalla standing next to the president 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.959 as well as a woman called Anki. Thus, she's Facebook's 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.800 public policy director for India and South and Central Asia. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.360 So we started talking politicians in Sri Lanka. Now they 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.880 are doing a lot with Facebook. They advertise they maintained pages, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:14.520 most of them have teams managing them. UH new media 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.920 websites planting news good news better so they U see. 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.120 Oshalla wanted to talk about the Sri Lankan government and 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.560 the way the president was using Facebook. He claimed that 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:29.200 Facebook had allowed the Sri Lankan government special privileges and 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.319 that the government was using it to silence its critics 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:49.680 and cemented its script on power. Hi, I'm Pa got 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.320 Cary and I'm Sarah Fryar. And this week on Decrypted, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.200 as part of our special series on Unintended Consequences of technology, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.000 will take a look at how Facebook has courted policy 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.160 co leaders looking to curry favor in new markets in 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.320 its mission to connect the world. But the company of 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.480 policy of offering special services and training to political candidates 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.960 and government officials may have also inadvertently created an opening 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.080 for some leaders to manipulate the platform. Facebook pages can 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.200 give politicians a way to spread their message, monitor the opposition, 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.959 and make a person or agency seem more popular than 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.000 perhaps they really are. Behind the scenes, Facebook was poorly 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.760 equipped to stop the misuse. You've probably already heard about 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.200 how Russia tried to use social media in the run 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.840 up to the US presidential election, but in other countries, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.320 the manipulation is coming from inside the government itself. Stay 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:54.919 with us. So, Sarah, let's go back to the end 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.799 of the year. A brutal civil war had just ended 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.400 a few years earlier, and Sri Lanka was under the 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.919 rule of President Mahinda Rajapaksa Russia. Paksa had already been 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.480 in power for a decade and had a growing reputation 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.120 as a strong man without much regard for democracy. In 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.120 the final weeks of the year, he called a snap election. Initially, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.080 nobody was running against him. That's when his former health minister, 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:33.720 a man called ma Tripala Sirisena, stepped forward. Amad me on. 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.400 When I spoke to Shaala Hara, the man who reached 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:41.960 out to me on Twitter, he said he had felt 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.520 electrified by Sara Sanna's decision to run the previous regime. 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.680 He was like a bit of a dictator and the 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.440 media was suppressed and so on and so so. The 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.080 I also personally decided that you should do something suppout 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.960 the common candidate. Shalla called Citizena the common candidate because 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.600 he became the common choice of all the political parties 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.600 to run against Rajapaksa. Even the main opposition party supported 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.040 him instead of their own candidate. At the time, Oshalla 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.440 said he was running a Facebook page called u p 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.279 f A A Brighter Future, which he says was pretty popular. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.240 U p f A stands for United People's Freedom Alliance 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.640 and it's one of the political parties in Sri Lanka. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.640 He said he started it in two and used to 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:33.039 post mainly about politics. Oshalla said he thought this new candidate, Citizener, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.560 would be a change for the country, so he decided 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.200 to use the reach of his Facebook page to help 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.719 and the next forty days we just volunteered in his campaign, 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:48.760 and within forty days the page members grew from thirty 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.200 to about two hundred fifty thou and every day we 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.040 were getting about three d likes. Three hundred thousand likes 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.640 on Facebook was a big number back in Sri Lanka 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.400 is an island nation of about twenty one million people 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.720 and Facebook was still catching on. But Servisna recognized this 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.400 platform offered away for him to connect directly with potential voters, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.920 and Oshalla was ready to help. I wanted to do 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.479 so many things with social media because people saw that 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.600 election as a revolution through social media. Because all mainstream 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:26.400 media was on one side with the previous UH regime 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.880 only one TV channel. One series was like UH supporting 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:36.760 the common candidate or being opened with the election, So 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:42.240 the social media was the one with was the open platform. 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:50.160 Then in January, citizen and won the election. Sri Lanka 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:01.880 took Matthew are a commas artist mind the days. Mama 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:11.839 main than my family lives in Sri Lanka and I 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.040 remember this was a big surprise when it happened. Internationally, 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.280 his victory was seen as a sign that Sri Lanka 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.040 was rejecting a strongman leader and respecting the democratic process, 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.400 so there was a lot of hope. Oshalla told me 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.440 that after Service Sanna's victory, he was offered a job 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.640 on the president's social media team. He said yes, and 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.440 soon after starting he reached out to Facebook. Oshla says 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:36.760 he wanted to work with the company to help more 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.440 Sri Lankan's get online. At the time, Facebook was actively 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.000 trying to spread the Internet as part of its mission 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.920 to make the world more open and more connected. It's 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.200 easy to see why this has been a goal for 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.680 the company. There are humanitarian reasons internet access is good. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.400 At the same time, having more people online equals more 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:03.640 connections on Facebook. More connection means more activity, and ultimately, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.640 more activity means more growth for the company. So Facebook 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.280 started ramping up its work with governments around the world. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.800 It connected with them to spread internet access, but it 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.680 also worked on more mundane things like official Facebook pages 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:23.440 and campaign ads. The role that Facebook has played with 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:28.080 governments across the world has really grown as the company 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.800 has grown. That's Lauren Etta. She's our colleague here at 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:33.960 Bloomberg who has done a lot of reporting on how 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:38.480 governments have used Facebook around the world. And Facebook would 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.560 pretty much work with anybody. They would work with any 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:47.040 candidate that was speaking to increase their outreach, increase the 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.240 reach and brought in their based on the platform. Oshaa 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.880 says he connected with the company's political unit, and before 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.800 long a team from Facebook arrived in the country ready 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:02.080 to help. In the past, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.480 spoken frequently about how more openness is generally a good 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.200 thing and has vowed to combat misuse on his platform. 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.000 I also recently talked to the head of Facebook's political unit, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.760 who told me that she's making sure that governments follow 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:23.480 the same rules as everyone else. So Facebook had put 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.720 down roots in Sri Lanka and it had spread quickly 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.560 across the country, but before long problems started to crop up. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:37.200 What we saw on Facebook was um that bad fat actors, 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:43.200 um we're coming increasing in increasing numbers and producing and 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:48.720 promoting content from an extremist Buddhist nationalist perspective that was 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:55.080 inciting hit and violence that san Janatata he's a senior 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.560 researcher at the Center for Policy Alternatives in a founding 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:04.959 editor of Groundview Style or a journalism organization in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:07.400 this was around the same time that this started to 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:14.520 happen in Myanma as well. This hateful content that Sanjana 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.560 was seeing was a total contrast to the narrative around 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.680 Facebook and other parts of the world at that time. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.240 This was a time when Facebook was basking in the 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.520 glow of the Arab Spring, and there was a general 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.520 euphoria and optimism about the potential of the platform to 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:35.439 contribute to democracy and bringing the word closer together. As 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.359 far as Sanjana knew, Facebook didn't have any content moderators 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.880 who were fluent in Sri Lanka's local languages. Simila and 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.920 tamiel So Ground Views, the organization he helped to found 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:54.320 started publishing reports about this hate speech and hoping to 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.720 raise awareness of the problem. Oshana told me that even 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.880 though he was working for the government, he saw the 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.959 trends too. It was an easy platform for people with 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.760 listed interest to plant fake news, insult people, harass people. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.960 There is no way to find out who is doing 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.920 it or it's like people can do any damage to 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.440 any person anonymously. He told me that he even tried 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.000 to talk to Facebook about it when its team came 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.480 to Sri Lanka. So we at that point President requested 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.040 Social Facebook to have some sort of a system to 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.320 regulate all these things, and we asked them to, if possible, 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:43.280 to help us to teach do programs to help people 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.120 to have move awareness of how to use Facebook Facebook 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:51.240 tools in order to protect themselves. But Oshalla says Facebook 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.920 wanted to help with other things like verifying political pages 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.720 and expanding in the country, and wasn't as concerned with 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.520 the other problems that across being up. We'll be right back. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.319 Facebook was quickly becoming a critical part of how people 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.679 got online and got the news, and governments around the 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.640 world we're realizing this too. Sometimes officials worked harmoniously with 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.439 Facebook to connect people and make more public information available, 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.840 but they also leaned on the platform as a campaign 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.120 tool his Lauren again, So slowly, Facebook became kind of 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:40.080 an appendage to many of these political campaigns to the 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.240 point where they would they would essentially have a Facebook 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.520 operative inside many of the major campaigns around the world, 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.520 from the Philippines to India, UM to the United States. UM. 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.960 As we know in the United States, Facebook was was 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.920 critical to a Trump campaign. Governments became acutely aware of 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.400 Facebook's power to either help them or hurt them. They 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.439 started to realize that social media was an extremely high 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.000 stakes game. So basically Facebook predicated this notion that they 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.200 were going to change the world, and they you know, 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.040 they were. They were very prominent during the Air Spring 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.720 and critical to these uplisings that happened across the Middle East, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:25.160 and everybody widely viewed Facebook as the platform for democratic action, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:30.079 and it was. But as the tools spread from countries 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.679 from around the Middle East to other places around the world, 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.000 you inevitably and inevitably ended up in the hands of 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:47.200 governments and leaders that were not interested in democracy. So 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.480 you have this tool that's supposed to be neutral in 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.080 this platform that's supposed to be this great equalizer for 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.120 the public and governments in many cases are using it 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.560 to share public information, but they're also using it for 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:06.000 their own political ends. And this strategy worked great for Facebook, 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.040 which was making money from political content people were posting 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:13.800 and sharing on the platform. For Facebook, they saw very 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:20.199 early on that elections were like any other major event 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.760 that drew lots of people to their platform. In time, 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.280 elections became like they drew in the same number of 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.559 users as say the Super Bowl or say the Olympics. 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.800 So because Facebook is essentially an advertising platform, they saw 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.760 this as a huge opportunity to cash in on a 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.520 massive audience. And not only was it a big audience, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.920 but it was a very engaged audience, And that's a 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:56.720 very critical point to understand. In Sri Lanka. It was 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.680 so successful that people spent most of their time online 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.360 on the platform, but Facebook didn't seem to take into 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.240 account what could happen when online communities became the main 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:12.120 source of news in a country with unstable politics. By 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.120 the start of this year, long standing tensions were running 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.839 high in Sri Lanka. Rumors were going viral on Facebook 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.160 saying that the country's small number of Muslims wanted to 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.520 wipe out the country's Buddhist majority. One of the fake 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.440 posts alleged that Muslim pharmacies were distributing sterilization pills and 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.680 putting them into people's food. The toxic content Sanjina had 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.120 been tracking on Facebook for years had finally broken into 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.240 the real world. Extremists from the Buddhist community, people with 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.800 large followings, were using the social network to plot real 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:53.000 world attacks. Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency after 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:57.440 mob attacks on Muslim communities by hardline Buddhists. A curfew 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.440 has been put in place in the district of Candy. 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.160 At the groups of Buddhists attacked Muslim owned businesses, homes 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:10.080 and a mosque. A few days of panic followed. Violent 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.440 incidents seemed to be spreading out from Candy to elsewhere 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.920 in the country, spurred on by social media. Then the 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.720 government decided to act. It took an extraordinary step. The 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.040 government shut down Facebook access, blocked access to the platform 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.920 in the country and I think that is what for 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:35.960 you know, raised the profile of the country at Facebook's officers. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.600 So Facebook was blocked across the country and in some areas, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.280 the whole Internet went down. I remember this vividly because 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.240 my family lives in Sri Lanka and without access to 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.560 WhatsApp and other internet calling services, we were cut off 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.200 for a few days. The government justified the internet shutdown 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.160 by saying it was trying to stop the flow of 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:03.000 false information. The violence subsided after a couple of weeks. 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.280 The Internet was restored across Sri Lanka and Facebook service 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.440 resumed as normal. But the incidents showed not just how 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.440 dangerous online networks can be, but who ultimately controls access 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.960 to them. Until the shutdown, san Jana never knew for 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.480 sure whether his research flagging Sri Lanka's hate speech problem 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:27.000 on Facebook ever even registered with the company. We you know, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.240 sent it to the publicly available email interessers of Facebook 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.120 that were available to us. They were the individual they 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.000 were institutionals, So we don't know who it was read by, 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.760 if any, and if it was read, how it was 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.120 escalated within the company and to whom, when, why, or where. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.480 So we didn't get any response whatsoever in all the 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:51.160 years that we did the research, But after the shutdown, 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.400 Facebook started paying attention. His lack of access is not 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.840 unusual a lot of people outside the government try to 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.480 get in touch with Facebook and just can't find anyone 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:05.240 to talk to. And once Charlotte left, supposed to the government, 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.359 he tried to flag abuse to his old contacts of 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.639 the company. When he did, he got blocked. He actually 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.800 showed me the messages. Oshalla's issues were separate from the 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.720 violence that had broken out across the country. He was 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.840 trying to tell Facebook that the government itself was manipulating 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.920 pages on the platform. Here's an example. One wrong thing 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.719 is what government did changing a page name and using 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.040 audience which are not truly their followers as they are, 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.640 to show that they are a bit popular and they 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:44.439 have numbers. And the second thing Facebook, without looking into it, 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:49.159 they endorsed it and they verified it. This might not 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.920 sound like a big deal, but this is an example 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.720 of how easy it is to be deceptive on Facebook. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.920 Oshalla told us he found out that the government took 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.720 a popular joke page and branded it as a political page. 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.840 They basically co opted a page with a bunch of 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.840 followers already making the administration look more popular online, and 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.720 then Facebook actually verified the page, putting a blue check 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:19.480 mark by it. Oshalla was able to see what the 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.400 government was doing because of a transparency tool that Facebook 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.800 itself added recently. It lets people know things like who 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.560 owns a page and previous names the page used to have. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:31.960 We looked and it showed that the page was in 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.439 fact previously a joke page. Facebook would of course have 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.520 had access to this information, but it appears the company 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:43.040 verified it anyway, so that page is still up and meanwhile, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.720 Oshalla is still blocked by the Facebook rep he reached 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:51.440 out to. We reached out to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.080 of Sri Lanka to ask them about the government's practice 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:59.280 of renaming Facebook pages, but we never heard back. This 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:01.840 isn't the only case of a government finding a way 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.800 to manipulate public perception on Facebook. Researchers have found that 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.800 the tactics that the Russian government used to influence public 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:13.560 opinion in the US presidential election were honed and perfected 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.760 on Russia's own population first and in the Philippines. Bloomberg 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.080 has reported how the journalist Maria Ressa tried at least 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:25.159 three separate times, including in person, with Mark Zuckerberg, to 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.399 ask the company to take action against fake news and 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.520 online harassment. A Facebook director said at the time that 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.640 it would take down hate speech targeted at journalists when 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.480 it was reported to the company. Facebook said that its 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.040 policy allows negative comments, but will act when it crosses 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:51.880 the line into hate speech or threats. Going forward, there 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.359 are a few things Facebook can do better to serve 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.720 its users in countries like Sri Lanka. Facebook knows that 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.960 it needs to dedicate more resources to low called language operations. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.560 Sri Lanka has two main languages, Sinhala and Tamil, and 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.240 until recently, Facebook had very few people working in these languages, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.000 so the company couldn't tell if a post was full 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.120 of hate speech, for example, and the things in Sri 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:21.040 Lanka mostly people communicated language and our own to take 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:26.000 single language and Facebook, that's a huge gap. They don't 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:30.639 They can't uh understand the content even though it is 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:35.359 here speach whatever. Oshalla says that it's easy to create 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.359 fake accounts. That's because people in Sri Lanka often have 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.639 multiple names, so if Facebook asks for verification, one idea 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.679 could cover several accounts. He also explained how easy it 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.720 was to buy popular pages from others. He showed me 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.440 a couple of marketplaces that were active, but Facebook executives 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.919 are investing in learning more about Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:58.880 is the first country in the world in all its 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.840 markets that it does announced that it's going to proactively 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.359 take down missingful that are escalation channels now available for 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:11.240 civil society to report content. Fake news isn't against the 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.200 rules on Facebook, but the company recently made a policy 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.160 banning fake news that incites violence, so it took down 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:21.800 those pages we talked about that were related to the 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:26.359 sterilization pills and food. Facebook itself, I think has undertaken 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:32.080 reviews of its content curation, moderation, oversight capabilities and capacities. 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.520 They have assured us that there are more moderators or 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.160 people who are responsible for kind of maintaining the health 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.439 of the public discourse on the platforms. What we don't know, however, 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.760 is how many they are. Well. Santina is waiting for 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.000 Facebook to say how many moderators they now have focused 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.159 on Sri Lanka. He did say that he's been in 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.359 contact with the company about related matters in recent months, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.520 and finally, executives are making trips of the country and 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:04.200 working with local organization now to talk about threats. So 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.119 Sarah I mean, one of the things that really struck 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.280 me as we were working on this episode together is 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.760 Facebook wasn't better prepared for the fact that politicians might 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.800 try to use the platform to spread propaganda. One thing 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.359 that's been clear overall about Facebook in the past years 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:22.520 is that they kind of just focused on growth. They 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:24.960 just wanted to get bigger and do whatever it took 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.399 to get people connected to Facebook, and their mission is, 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.040 you know, connecting the world and didn't quite think at 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:39.600 all about the consequences of that connection or really the 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:43.399 strategy to achieve it. So are they now trying to 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.600 recalibrate their approach to training political candidates. Well, the United 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.360 Nations has come out and called them out for their 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:57.400 role in some violence in Myanmer and other countries. I mean, 0:22:57.920 --> 0:22:59.960 it's coming to a head. There's a lot of screw 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:05.239 me over Facebook's sort of way of working, and the 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.359 company is looking into this and trying to invest in 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.240 it more. But you know, for people like sanjoh, it 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:16.159 like this is this is stuff that Facebook should have 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.160 been aware of, that they were alerted to as early 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:25.639 as and it shouldn't have taken until raging violence in 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.640 a country for them to really get to it. Yeah, well, 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.080 I guess on that point, Sanjina definitely has a point. 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:33.560 I wonder in light of all of the scrutiny and 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:36.320 also these kind of changes that they're making to their approach, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.880 is the company kind of moderating the way the activities 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.560 that it's political unit get involved with. That's like the 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.120 central problem here, right, is that, like in these countries 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:51.240 or people don't necessarily have as much experience with the Internet, 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.679 the governments are getting trained and the users are not, 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:58.359 and there's this advantage that the governments have in manipulating 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:02.800 their populations, and that's not a good setup. All that 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.400 Facebook has told me so far is that they are 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:09.640 focused on making sure that the governments know that they 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:12.920 have to adhere to Facebook's community standards. So they're not 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:18.080 stopping this kind of training that they do or getting 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.640 governments up to speed on how best to use the tools. 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.000 They think of government's kind of like they think of 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:28.000 sports stars or celebrities just people that everyone wants to 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:30.840 follow on Facebook, so why not give them v I 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.720 P Attention? So but at the same time, it sounds 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:38.480 like they're stopping short of being um like very explicit 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:40.880 about new measures that they would introduce to make sure 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:44.040 that governments aren't breaking the rules. I mean, as a 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.680 contrast to the way they've they've really started talking about 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:49.760 measures they're taking to crack down on things like fake 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.359 news and hate speech. Well, the government's control what is 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:58.600 very important to Facebook, which is access to Facebook. So 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:02.760 you know, they want to make sure when Oshana introduced 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:05.879 Facebook to the country for the first time, they also 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:09.080 wanted to meet with the telecom regulators. They wanted to 0:25:09.119 --> 0:25:11.159 meet with, you know, the sort of the people that 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:15.159 would be in control of the business relationship as well. 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:17.840 And I think that that's you know, those are the 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:21.320 incentives that Facebook operates on, and they're trying to make 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:26.199 sure that they clean up their procedures and policies and 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:31.359 improved training and investment. But there are some fundamental ways 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:35.480 that the platform works with the government that maybe the 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:39.000 government will always have this advantage. Yeah, so it sounds 0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:41.000 like Facebook is still racing to catch up with the 0:25:41.040 --> 0:25:54.240 reality that helped create. I would say that's true. And 0:25:54.320 --> 0:25:57.639 that's it for this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Do 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:00.399 you have a story about Facebook in your country, We 0:26:00.440 --> 0:26:02.840 want to hear from you. You can email us at 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:05.560 decrypted at Bloomberg dot net or I'm on Twitter at 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.200 Sarah Fryer and I'm at Pia gad Cary. If you're 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:11.320 a fan of the show, please take a moment to 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:14.200 rate and review us. It really helps new listeners find 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:17.399 the show. This episode was produced by Pierre Goodcary and 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:21.560 Liz Smith. Our story editor was Anne Vandermain. Thanks also 0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:27.240 to Austin Weinstein, Brad Stone, Akido, Emily Busso, and Magnus Hendrickson. 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:31.000 Francesca Levi is head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:35.320 next week.