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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Monday 13 May 2019
Why does Facebook fail to fix itself? It’s partly humans

By BARBARA ORTUTAY ing behind personal details
AP Technology Writer that can then be targeted
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — by advertisers. “Almost ev-
The question comes up erything Facebook has de-
over and over, with extrem- signed has been designed
ist material, hate speech, for good people. People
election meddling and pri- who are nice to each oth-
vacy invasions. Why can’t er, who have birthdays to
Facebook just fix it? celebrate, who have new
It’s complicated, with rea- puppies and generally like
sons that include Face- to treat others well,” said
book’s size, its business Siva Vaidhyanathan, direc-
model and technical limita- tor of the Center for Media
tions, not to mention years and Citizenship at the Uni-
of unchecked growth. Oh, versity of Virginia. “Basically
and the element of human Facebook is made for a
nature. better species than ours.
The latest revelation: Face- If it were made for golden
book is inadvertently creat- retrievers, everything would
ing celebratory videos us- be great.” But if just 1% of
ing extremist content and the 2.4 billion people on
auto-generating business Facebook want to do ter-
pages for the likes of ISIS rible things to others, that’s
and Al Qaida. The compa- A banner reading “The Islamic State” is displayed on the Facebook page of a user identifying 24 million people.
ny says it is working on solu- himself as Nawan Al-Farancsa. “Every couple of weeks,
tions and the problems are Associated Press we hear about Facebook
getting better. That is true, the University of California, ing and removing terrorism the company has reduced knocking down trouble-
but critics say better is not Berkeley. content at a far higher suc- the amount of misinforma- some pages, making prom-
good enough when mass As new problems crop up, cess rate than even two tion shared on its service, as ises about hiring more peo-
shootings are being live- Facebook’s formula has years go,” Facebook said measured by several inde- ple, building AI and so on,”
streamed and online mobs been to apologize and Wednesday in response to pendent studies. Vaidhyanathan said. “But
are spreading rumors that promise to make changes, the revelations about the Zuckerberg has also, by at Facebook’s scale, none
lead to deadly violence. sometimes also noting that auto-generated pages. and large, avoided similar of that will matter. We are
“They have been frustrat- it did not anticipate how “We don’t claim to find ev- gaffes by conceding mis- basically stuck with all this
ingly slow in dealing with malicious actors could so erything, and we remain takes and delivering apolo- garbage.”
everything from child readily misuse its platform. vigilant in our efforts against gies to the public and to Chris Hughes, a co-founder
sexual abuse to terrorism, More recently, the compa- terrorist groups around the lawmakers . of Facebook, called for a
white supremacy, bullying, ny has also emphasized just world.” But even as the company breakup of the social me-
nonconsensual porn” and how much it is improving, It has seen some success. bats down one problem, dia giant in a Thursday op-
things like allowing adver- both technically in its use of In late 2016, CEO Mark others pop up. The reason ed. Vaidhyanathan also
tisers to target categories artificial intelligence to de- Zuckerberg infamously dis- for that might be baked thinks strong government
such as “Jew hater,” simply tect problems and in terms missed as “pretty crazy” the into its DNA. And that’s not regulation could be the an-
because some users had of focusing more money idea that fake news on his just because its business swer, such as laws that “lim-
listed the term as an “in- and effort on fixing them. service could have swayed model relies on as many it companies’ ability to suck
terest,” said Hany Farid, a “After making heavy in- the election. He later back- people as possible using it up all our data and use it to
digital forensics expert at vestments, we are detect- tracked, and since then as much as possible, leav- target advertising.”q

Nike’s plan for better-fitting

kicks: Show us your feet

By JOSEPH PISANI and apps. But Nike will also nies, Martin says. And he
AP Retail Writer get something it has never says shoppers don’t have
NEW YORK (AP) — Nike had before: a flood of data to save the foot scans to
wants to meet your feet. on the feet of regular peo- their Nike accounts. But if
The sneaker seller will add ple, a potential goldmine they do, they’ll only have
a foot-scanning tool on its for the shoe maker, which to scan their feet once
app this summer that will says it will use the informa- and Nike’s apps, websites
measure the length, width tion to improve the design and stores will know your
and other dimensions of of its shoes. Nike mainly re- dimensions every time
customers’ feet after they lies on the feet of star ath- you need to buy sneak-
point a smartphone cam- letes to build its kicks. ers. Workers at Nike stores
era to their toes. The app “Nikes will become better will also be equipped with
will then tell shoppers what and better fitting shoes for iPods to do the scanning,
size to buy each of its shoes you and everyone else,” replacing those metal siz-
Nike officials demonstrate the company’s foot-scanning tool in, which Nike hopes will says Michael Martin, who ing contraptions. The chal-
on its app that will measure and remember the length, width get you in the right fit and oversees Nike’s websites lenging part for Nike is con-
and other dimensions of customers’ feet after they point a cut down on costly returns and apps. vincing people they need
smartphone camera to their toes, Wednesday April 24, 2019, in as it seeks to sell more of its Nike won’t sell or share to measure their feet in the
New York. goods through its websites the data to other compa-
Associated Press first place.q