Former President Obama said the way voters consume and share information is weakening democracies around the world and blamed the current information ecosystem empowered by social media companies for 'turbocharging some of humanity's worst impulses.'
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty ImagesFormer President Barack Obama said the way voters consume and share information is weakening democracies around the world and blamed the current information ecosystem empowered by social media companies for "turbocharging some of humanity's worst impulses."
"Some of the current challenges we face are inherent to a fully connected world," Obama said. "They're also the result of very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular." Leaked internal documents from Facebook's parent company Meta last year showed the platform's researchers were aware their algorithmsFacebook researchers have long known that bad actors game the system and manipulate the platform's algorithms. According to a December 2019 memo, Facebook researchers noticed that users were "positing ever more outrageous things to get comments and reactions that our algorithms interpret as signs we should let things go viral.
He has highlighted the threat of misinformation and disinformation in recent public appearances, but on Thursday, he took issue with what he characterized as the comprehensive way in which disinformation is impacting democracies abroad and in the U.S. Obama was the subject of a disinformation campaign himself during his presidency when right-wing white nationalists claimed he was not born in America. The White House eventuallyIn recent months, Obama has been meeting with academics, researchers, former regulators and industry leaders to discuss the threat of disinformation. He has blamed social media platforms for elevating falsehoods as much as truths.
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