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A few days ago, a whistleblower from Facebook named Frances Haugen made public a report that exposed startling information about how the company has responded to hate speech. Haugen revealed that, despite its efforts, Facebook only managers to remove about 3-5% of the hate speech that occurs on its platform, according to its own estimates. While this statistic is troubling in itself, it is made worse when you consider what kind of impact such language can have on the people that use the site.

Profit vs. protection
When publicizing the report, Haugen commented “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous”. In other words, Facebook has been accused of putting profit over safety on its platform. While investing in stopping hate speech is good for society, it is not necessarily good for Facebook’s bottom line, as hateful content can drive more people to spend more time on the site.

However, this is starting to change. A group of advertisers, including the North Face and Patagonia, are demanding that Facebook ramp up their efforts to reduce the presence of hate speech on the site. As part of this campaign, titled “Stop Hate for Profit”, the advertisers are refusing to collaborate with Facebook until it takes actionable steps to improve the issue. Efforts such as these could make allowing hate speech costly, potentially tipping the scales and hopefully encouraging Facebook to make a change.

Where do we go from here
While many argue that legal regulation is the best way to reduce hate speech online, this is not as easy as it seems. For one, invoking regulations in this area is difficult without infringing on the right to free speech. Furthermore, catching such speech on a large scale would require intensive investment in text analytics and employees to examine flagged posts and discern what constitutes free speech. As a result, it may take a long time before we begin to see progress towards eliminating hate speech online.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-misinformation-public-60-minutes-2021-10-03/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/22/facebook-hate-speech-advertisers-north-face

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With the increase in people working from home, employers have been looking for ways to monitor the productivity of their employees. Software solutions such as Teramind, Hivedesk, Time Doctor, and Sneek are enabling firms to do so, by giving them the option to track their employee’s activity. But how do they actually track this? And what does this mean for the future of work practices?

Tracking software in action
The software solutions work in different ways, but they generally involve tracking how an employee is using their mouse and keyboard, while also taking periodic screenshots of either the person or their screen. For example, the program Sneek takes photos of employees every 1-5 minutes, depending on the employer’s preferences, and displays them on a digital photo wall for everyone to see.

This solution has received mixed responses from the public. Not surprisingly, a lot of employees see it as an invasion of their privacy, finding the program to be intimidating and unnecessary, rather than motivating. Privacy appears to be an issue among many of these programs, as some of them essentially allow employers to “spy” on employees.

Measuring productivity
As the popularity of these systems continues to increase, it is worth critically examining how effective they actually are in improving productivity. For example, a study by Gartner from 2021 found that people were more likely to pretend they were working when being monitored by tracking software while working from home. This begs the question, do such programs actually increase productivity, or do they only increase the appearance of productivity?

Potential alternatives
As a result of the controversy around this topic, a lot of companies are looking for alternatives to make sure employees stay productive while working from home. Global Workplace Analytics suggests that the best option for ensuring productivity is still to set clear goals and manage results. Maybe this is what companies should be focusing on instead of trying to track their employees?

I think this topic prompts a lot of interesting questions. If you have any experience with these types of software, feel free to share it in the comments!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/05/covid-coronavirus-work-home-office-surveillance

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/new-tech-tools-employers-are-using-to-keep-watch-on-remote-workers.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinstoller/2021/05/05/employees-are-more-likely-to-pretend-theyre-working-when-employers-track-their-productivity-heres-why/?sh=3fbb71d49c27

https://www.businessinsider.nl/work-from-home-sneek-webcam-picture-5-minutes-monitor-video-2020-3?international=true&r=US