Zuckerberg Admits He’s Developing Artificial Intelligence to Censor Content
This week we were treated to a veritable carnival attraction as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world, testified before Senate committees about privacy issues related to Facebook’s handling of user data. Besides highlighting the fact that most United States senators — and most people, for that matter — do not understand Facebook’s business model or the user agreement they’ve already consented to while using Facebook, the spectacle made one fact abundantly clear: Zuckerberg intends to use artificial intelligence to manage the censorship of hate speech on his platform.
Over the two days of testimony, the plan for using algorithmic AI for potential censorship practices was discussed multiple times under the auspices of containing hate speech, fake news, election interference, discriminatory ads, and terrorist messaging. In fact, AI was mentioned at least 30 times. Zuckerberg claimed Facebook is five to ten years away from a robust AI platform. All four of the other Big 5 tech conglomerates — Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft — are also developing AI, many for the shared purposes of content control.
For obvious reasons, this should worry civil liberty activists and anyone concerned about the erosion of first amendment rights online. The encroaching specter of a corporate-government propaganda alliance is not a conspiracy theory. Barely over a month ago, Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before Congress to announce the launch of a ‘counterspeech’ campaign in which positive and moderate posts will be targeted at people consuming and producing extremist or radical content.
Like the other major social networks, Facebook has already been assailed by accusations of censorship against conservative and alternative news sources. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) outlined some other examples of the company’s “overzealous censorship” in just the last year:
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