FACEBOOK GAVE itself a test, and the results are in: The company’s recent record on nondiscrimination, according to an expert civil rights audit it commissioned, has been marked by pitfalls as much as progress.
Facebook’s audit began two years ago at the encouragment of advocacy groups concerned that the company’s commitment to free speech above all else had allowed toxicity to seep throughout the platform, giving bad actors an excuse to harass and to spread hate, and even leading to real-world violence, as seen in Charlottesville. Now, the top-level takeaway from the detailed assessment is that Facebook wrongly prioritizes free expression — yet that’s a too-simple reading of the complicated world of platform governance.
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