Mark Zuckerberg was fully aware of Facebook's role during the US Capitol takeover

The Facebook Papers - a huge set of internal company documents made available to news organizations by whistleblower Frances Haugen - appear to reveal a lot of compromising information about the company.

Reports published today include confirmation that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was fully aware of how the social media platform contributed to the polarization of opinion that was instrumental in sparking the unrest and takeover of the Capitol in the United States.

Washington Post reports that the growing problem has been discussed by all top executives, including Zuckerberg. An internal study cited by the NYT says the company was fully aware that it was accelerating the spread of "hate speech" by making material easy to share.

In particular, Politico adds, the company was aware of the dangers of the material that sparked a riot at the U.S. Capitol building, but had no strategy for dealing with it. Politico also reports that Facebook documents show that the company had no doubts about its huge influence in the US:

Internal figures show that 78% of American adults and almost all US teenagers use the company's services.

Outside the US, things were even worse, according to a Reuters report:

Internal company documents seen by Reuters show that Facebook knew it had not hired enough employees with the language and local knowledge needed to identify unwanted messages from users in a number of developing countries [...].

There is a lot of other information about Facebook Papers, including a CNN report stating that Facebook has failed to block material even related to criminal activity such as human trafficking.

Source: washingtonpost, politico, reuters, cnn

Illustration: politico, Eric Risberg/AP