Algorithms can be a lot of help to automate things. But in Facebook's case, algorithms gave it quite a hefty amount of troubles.
After a series of embarrassing incidents made by algorithms, the social giant Facebook is assembling a team that consists of former intelligence officers, media buyers and researchers to spot any future potential crisis the platform might face.
According to a report from BuzzFeed, this group is known internally as the “Investigative Operations Team.”
Comprised of experts in a variety of fields, the group is tasked to attack various parts of Facebook to identify weaknesses to see what might be vulnerable to manipulation, before malicious actors can exploit them. From exploiting Facebook's advertising systems, pages, and merchant tools. They’re also trying to break other Messenger, Instagram and more.
They are also required to keep an eye on potentially problematic behavior from different regions around the world, by looking for keywords and any other indicators that might provoke violence or other unwanted incidents.
Facebook has been facing a lot of troubles.
After removing its human editors who helped curate new stories, the company switched to an algorithm. But this immediately promoted an article full of misinformation. The company was in a crisis, and it wasn't prepared to what was going to happen next.
From affecting the 2016 U.S. presidential election with fake stories and ridiculous advertisements, viral Pages that were created and operated by Russian government-linked internet trolls. Facebook has turned into a propaganda platform, and has even faced public shame after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
It was also discovered that its advertising platform allowed ad buyers to target users by race. The company also came under fire when it allowed people to serve ads to users who were identified by Facebook’s algorithm as Jew Haters.
"It was clear late last year that we needed to do more and do something different," said Facebook Business Integrity Director Lynda Talgo. "And honestly it wasn’t clear before that."
This is where the Investigative Operations Team takes its role. Consisting of experts on the fields, they work in the background to prevent any further misuse of flaws from affecting or damaging Facebook and/or its reputation.
“What we have now is a series of people who are truly looking for how could you possibly do something wrong," said Talgo. "Their entire job is to look forward and figure out what’s coming around the corner."
After seeing its algorithms failed, the company is gain relying on humans to help it police the platform. While it may not eliminate all future problems, but at least what Facebook is hoping is that, nothing will get pass under its nose anymore.
This time, it wants to be prepared.