Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly approved a new internal effort to defend the reputation of the social network's News Feeds last month, a huge policy shift amid criticism of social media's spread of misinformation.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Zuckerberg signed Project Amplify in August. The new project includes suggestions for highlighting positive stories from Facebook to users' News Feeds, the most popular section of the site, including posts written by Facebook itself. The idea of Project Amplify is said to have shocked some senior executives of the company.
Project Amplify has since been tested in three US cities, the Times reports. Company spokesman Joe Osborne told the newspaper that with the positive posts, there were no dramatic changes in the way posts were ranked in the Facebook News Feed.
But this particular project is a departure from Facebook's previous efforts with a simple apology for issues which was related to misinformation and hate speech. Zuckerberg himself was forced to apologize several times for the Russian influence campaigns that proliferated on the site during the elections of 2016 and pledged to increase transparency.
The company has faced a lot of criticism, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have prompted some executives to start Project Amplify.
The Times publication cites a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal που κυκλοφόρησαν την περασμένη εβδομάδα και βασίζονται σε εσωτερικά έγγραφα που ισχυρίζονται ότι το Facebook υποβάθμισε τις αρνητικές επιπτώσεις του Instagram στα νεαρά κορίτσια και δεν προέβη σε σκληρές ενέργειες ακόμη και όταν είδε την παραπληροφόρηση για το vaccine COVID-19 spreading on its platform.
