Tag Archives: Report

Facebook says posts with graphic violence rose in early 2018

FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

By David Ingram

MENLO PARK, Calif. (Reuters) – The number of posts on Facebook showing graphic violence rose in the first three months of the year from a quarter earlier, possibly driven by the war in Syria, the social network said on Tuesday, in its first public release of such data.

Facebook said in a written report that of every 10,000 pieces of content viewed in the first quarter, an estimated 22 to 27 pieces contained graphic violence, up from an estimate of 16 to 19 late last year.

The company removed or put a warning screen for graphic violence in front of 3.4 million pieces of content in the first quarter, nearly triple the 1.2 million a quarter earlier, according to the report.

Facebook does not fully know why people are posting more graphic violence but believes continued fighting in Syria may have been one reason, said Alex Schultz, Facebook’s vice president of data analytics.

“Whenever a war starts, there’s a big spike in graphic violence,” Schultz told reporters at Facebook’s headquarters.

Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011. It continued this year with fighting between rebels and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army. This month, Israel attacked Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria.

Facebook, the world’s largest social media firm, has never previously released detailed data about the kinds of posts it takes down for violating its rules.

Facebook only recently developed the metrics as a way to measure its progress, and would probably change them over time, said Guy Rosen, its vice president of product management.

“These kinds of metrics can help our teams understand what’s actually happening to 2-plus billion people,” he said.

The company has a policy of removing content that glorifies the suffering of others. In general it leaves up graphic violence with a warning screen if it was posted for another purpose.

Facebook also prohibits hate speech and said it took action against 2.5 million pieces of content in the first quarter, up 56 percent a quarter earlier. It said the rise was due to improvements in detection.

The company said in the first quarter it took action on 837 million pieces of content for spam, 21 million pieces of content for adult nudity or sexual activity and 1.9 million for promoting terrorism. It said it disabled 583 million fake accounts.

(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

San Francisco police search blacks, Hispanics more than whites: panel

Police standing on Lombard Street

By Curtis Skinner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Three former judges examining accusations of racial bias by police in San Francisco said in a report released on Monday that black and Hispanic people were more likely to be searched without their consent by officers than whites and Asians.

The panel released its report as the United States reeled over the slayings of five police officers in Dallas who were on duty at a protest over the slayings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis.

“The panel found indications of institutionalized bias and institutional weaknesses in the department,” Anand Subramanian, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement, said at a news conference.

The panel, consisting of retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, retired Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell and retired federal Judge Dickran M. Tevrizian, was convened by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in March 2015 after racist text messages sent and received by San Francisco officers were made public.

San Francisco Police said in a statement after the report was released that they appreciated the panel’s efforts and would review the findings before turning over their analysis to Justice Department.

The panel said in a 240-page report that blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be searched after traffic stops than whites or Asians yet less likely to be carrying contraband.

According to the report, of all non-consensual searches after traffic stops, 42 percent in 2015 involved black motorists. The U.S. Census showed that in 2015, blacks made up less than 6 percent of the city’s population of 865,000.

Hispanics, who made up about 15 percent of San Franciscans in 2015, accounted for 19 percent of non-consensual searches, while whites accounted for half the population, but 21 percent of non-consensual searches, the report said.

Asians made up more than a third of the population, but were searched without their consent fewer than 10 percent of the time, according to the report.

The report recommended that San Francisco’s police department should improve its training on implicit bias, procedural justice and racial profiling, and called for stronger oversight.

The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association called the report misleading and divisive.

“We’re sitting on a tinderbox and Gascón is lighting a match,” association president Martin Halloran said in a statement.

San Francisco’s police department has been roiled by protests since December after the videotaped fatal police shooting of a black man.

The death of Mario Woods, 26, prompted a U.S. Department of Justice review of the police department.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein)