Facebook downranking system failure

Occurred: March 2022

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Facebook has experienced a 'massive' failure of its content ranking system that exposed users to a surge of disinformation, hate speech and other harmful content, according an internal report obtained by The Verge.

The document attributes the failure to a software bug and says that posts that would usually have been demoted by the company's algorithms were boosted by as much as 30%. 

A Facebook spokesman told The Verge the bug 'has not had any meaningful, long-term impact on our metrics.'

Operator: Meta/Facebook
Developer: Meta/Facebook
Country: USA; Global
Sector: Technology
Purpose: Minimise harmful content
Technology: Content ranking system
Issue: Robustness; Mis/disinformation
Transparency: Governance; Black box

Page info
Type: Incident
Published: March 2022