People searching on Facebook for footage of Saturday's racist shooting rampage in Buffalo, N.Y., may have come across posts with footage of the attack or links to websites promising the shooter's full video. They may have seen a variety of ads while Interspersed between those posts.
The social network sometimes serves ads next to posts with clips of the video, which was live streamed by a man who killed 10 people. For the past six days, recordings of that livestream have been uploaded to a number of internet sites, despite efforts by some companies to remove the content.
The challenges large tech platforms face in policing their sites for violent content are shown by the pace at which the 18-year-old shooter's live stream transitioned into a permanent recording.
Meta relies on artificial intelligence, user reports, and human moderators to track and remove shooting videos like the one in Buffalo. In some search results, Facebook shows a violent video or links to websites that host the video.
It's not clear how many times the ads have appeared next to the videos. There are ads for horror films, clothing companies and video streaming services in tests run by The New York Times and the Tech Transparency Project, an industry watchdog group. In some cases, Facebook recommended certain search terms that were popular on the platform.
In one search, the platform surfaced an ad for a video game company two posts below a clip of the shooting uploaded to Facebook that was described as very graphic.
He said that large tech platforms can demonetize searches around tragic events.
Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, said in a statement that their aim is to protect people using their services from seeing this horrible content. He didn't address the ads on Facebook.
Facebook can monitor searches on its platform. Users must click through to see the graphic content warnings when searching for terms like.
There was an inherent difference between the search platform and the social networking site. He said that advertisers can choose which words to use in their ads. Facebook places ads in a user's news feed or search results that it believes are relevant to that user based on their interests and web activity.
Michael Aciman said that the company had designated the Buffalo shooting as a sensitive event, which meant that ads couldn't be served against searches related to it.
In the past, Facebook has come under fire for ads next to right-wing extremists. After the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the platform was showing ads for military gear and gun accessories.
The company temporarily stopped ads for gun accessories and military gear during the presidential inauguration.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
