Facebook quietly rolled out a chatbot just for the holidays to advise employees on how to handle questions from family and friends about the firm’s controversies
Facebook quietly rolled out a chatbot to help employees tackle questions that family and friends may ask about its disastrous reputation over the holidays.
The tool, called ‘Liam Bot’, navigates employees through tough and uncomfortable questions about Facebook’s many controversies using a series of points.
The answers are said to have been written by Facebook’s public relationship team and lineup with the executive team’s statements on such things as free speech, election meddling and more.
The news was first reported by The New York Times (NYT), which noted Facebook began testing Liam Bot over the spring and made it live just in time for Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.
The NYT noted that when a question is asked, such as one regarding hate speech on the platform, the chatbot will instruct the employee to answer with certain points.
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Facebook quietly rolled out a chatbot to help employees tackle questions that family and friends may ask about its disastrous reputation over the holidays. The tool, called ‘Liam Bot’, navigates employees through tough and uncomfortable questions about Facebook’s many controversies using a series of points
For example, ‘It has hired more moderators to police its content’ or ‘It is working on AI to spot hate speech’ and there is also ‘Regulation is important for addressing the issue’.
It will also provide links from Facebook’s blog and other relevant documents that focus on the matter.
A Facebook spokesperson told The New York Times, ‘Our employees regularly ask for information to use with friends and family on topics that have been in the news, especially around the holidays.’
‘We put this into a chatbot, which we began testing this spring.”
The answers are said to have been written by Facebook’s public relationship team and lineup with the executive team’s statements on such things as free speech, election meddling and more
The Liam bot comes around a time when Facebook has been under scrutiny for a variety of controversies, all of which started with its role in the 2016 US president election.
Many claim the platform was flooded with misinformation that influenced Donald Trump’s victory.
The site was criticized for disseminating fake news stories, especially pro-Trump stories, in the days and weeks leading up the election.
Then just two years later, the Cambridge Analytica scandal occurred – millions of user profiles were harvested by Cambridge Analytica without their consent and used for political advertising purposes.
It was also revealed just last month that Facebook was testing a facial recognition app on its employees that was capable of identifying a person by pointing a smartphone camera at them.
The shocking report was first revealed by Business Insider who cited anonymous sources who said the app was developed between 2015 and 2016, but has since been shut down.
Facebook did confirm that it developed the app, but denied it was capable of identifying members of its social media network and pulling up their profile.
The site itself has come under fire for allowing violent and explicit content stay posted, such as war crimes, pro-eating disorder and white supremacy groups and child abuse images.
