Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-11-09)

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72

Theclosing ofpollsinthe U.S.will

inevitably herald the start of post­

mortem investigations into the roles

Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet’s

YouTubeplayedinthevote.Theprob­

lem witha postmortem isthat, by

definition, it suggests the issue is dead.

ButwhiletheU.S.presidentialelection

mightbeoverforanotherfouryears,

a dozen other national elections—

fromBelizetoMyanmartoNigeriato

Romania—willtakeplacethisyear.

Anddisinformation,propaganda,

andfakenewsareasbiga problemelsewhereasthey

areintheU.S.Insomeplacesit’sevenmoresevere.

FacebookInc.subsidiaryWhatsApp—whichisend­to­

endencrypted,makingit impossibleformoderatorsto

seethecontentofmessages—prevailsincountriessuch

asBrazilandIndia.

Althoughthedigitaladvertisinggianthasaddedthou­

sandsofemployeestovetdisinformationandharmful

content,theyoftenworkinregionalhubs.Soa modera­

torresponsibleforcontentinKenyamightwellbesitting

infrontofa computerscreeninDublinorevenFlorida.

On­the­groundknowledgecanbeimportant.Evena native

Swahilispeakermightstruggletounderstandsomesubtle­

ties.It’strickierstillforanalgorithm.Takecodeswitch­

ing,forexample—whentheconversationmigratesfrom

onemedium,suchasa politicalrally,toanother,such

asTwitter.Kenyanpoliticaldiscoursetendstoleanheav­

ilyonproverbs,accordingtotheNairobi­basedanalyst

NanjiraSambuli.“‘Nobody can stop

reggae’is a popularonehere,”shesays.

“Butit meansdifferentthingstodiffer­

entaudiences.”Theoriginal song lyric

is about resilience, but it “could mean

continue going to the streets irrespec­

tive of Covid,” she says. It would be hard

for an automated system or a moderator

in Dublin to grasp that nuance.

In September, BuzzFeed News

obtainedaninternalmemowrittenby

formerFacebookdatascientistSophie

Zhang.The6,600­word missive report­

edly outlined numerous occasions where the company,

based in Menlo Park, Calif., had either been slow or failed

to respond to evidence of coordinated campaigns using

bots and fake accounts to influence elections and public

opinion in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Honduras, Spain, Ukraine,

and many other countries. It often ignored problems

that arose outside the U.S. and Western Europe, regions

it deemed a priority, BuzzFeed said. Facebook would gen­

erally only tackle an issue after it had become the focus

of a negative media storm.

Engaging with the problem of disinformation properly

on a global level has a corollary benefit: Rather than treat­

ing it as an issue that rears its head every election cycle,

the technology platforms can take what they’ve learned in

another part of the world and apply it at home. Public opin­

ion is shaped and radicalized over years. The election may

have ended, but the problem isn’t going away. <BW> �Webb is

ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE WYLESOL the European tech columnist for Bloomberg Opinion

By Alex Webb

More Elections,

More Disinformation

◼ LAST THING

With Bloomberg Opinion