Is Meta, the parent company that runs Facebook and Instagram, engaging in election interference? What do you call it when a social media company practices “redlisting,” “shadow banning” and account “demotion” against people who post things against a particular political candidate or politician? Asking for a friend.
The O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), headed up by former Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, has come out with another undercover report showing one of Meta’s senior sofware engineers telling an undercover reporter that Meta does engage in all of those things to the benefit of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The man in question in the video, Jeevan Gyawali, even went so far as to confirm that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going to “help the Democrats” in this election cycle.
“You guys [Meta] have the ability to influence the outcome of the election,” the undercover reporter said.
“Yes,” Gyawali responded.
“Do you think Zuckerberg agrees?” the reporter asked.
Gyawali nods in the affirmative.
“Good,” the undercover reporter said playing it cool. “Is he going to help the Democrats?”
“Yeah,” Gywali said with confidence as if it were a foregone conclusion.
That’s just one aspect of the report. Here’s what else Gyawali had to say:
On “automatically demoting” “anti-Kamala” posts:
Gyawali: “Say your uncle in, like, Ohio said something about, like, ‘Kamala Harris is unfit to be president because she doesn’t have a child.’ That kind of shit is automatically demoted.”
Undercover Reporter: “Because I can see these, like, right-wing groups, like, setting up a Facebook, Instagram account or Facebook accounts for that matter, right? And just start posting disinformation to be, like, ‘Oh, like Harris is like, blah, blah, blah.”
Gyawali: “That’s all going to be demoted 100 percent. The civic classifier is strong.”
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On “redlisting” [things not permitted], or “shadow banning”:
Undercover Reporter: “Would [the person posting] be notified [of the demotion of their posts]?”
Gyawali: “The person would not be notified. But, there’s these things that we what you collect is, like…If a bunch of items that — like, if at least a couple of items that a person has created has violated civic classifier, then they’re also redlisted.”
Undercover Reporter: “So, is that called shadow banning?”
Gyawali: “Shadow banning, yeah.”
Undercover Reporter: “So they would be shadow banned?”
Gyawali: “Correct.”
Undercover Reporter: “They would never be shown.”
Gyawali: *shakes head in the negative.
Undercover Reporter: “So they would see a dip in impressions and engagement, but they would not be officially warned of the reason why.”
Gyawali: “Correct.”
There’s all that and more with complete context, which you can watch in the video below:
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