documents that we have been pouring over the last three weeks. as part of a consortium with 17 other news organizations looking at the documents that whistleblower frances haugen has handed over to the sec, and congress. a lot of this, a lot of these documents are the basis of those blockbusters wall street journal s that we saw. so we have been pouring over these documents. this is one of many examples of internal research that we saw genius researchers really inside facebook, which i am phds really know their stuff have been doing to sound the alarm. to facebook s product divisions and facebook s features, and facebook executives to say that you are causing harm on your platform. now, also with this highlighted it s that this was in the summer of 2019. now it wasn t until october of 2020 that facebook said, hey, we are going to take you on down. they are actually quite dangerous. this is after several violent
incidents including some shootings. so it s not like it was any mystery to them. we know now that they knew for over a year this was a violent conspiracy theory. driving on this platform. through its own recommendation algorithm many waited and waited, until a month before the election to call it quits. so, i want to ask a very finally force question that i ve been mulling on as a renter story. and let me see if i could articulate this specifically. so the algorithm is predicting that this woman with this profile would like this qanon stuff, right? and it keeps pushing it towards or, even when she doesn t definitely say yes get me into that group. but it somehow feels as though the algorithm is correct? they have her pegged as the kind of person who might be q curious. i am trying to get it. at one level is the algorithm doing the work, and it will level is the work being done by peoples nested preferences and trust relationship external to facebook? yes, that is a very well
with the platform pushed ahead the same. within one, week smith speed was full of groups and pages that had violated facebook s own rules including those against hate speech and disinformation. that s all really bad, but it gets worse. because carole smith isn t real. her account was created by a researcher employed by facebook, who was specifically studying hospice book misinform s and polarizes its users. the company knew what it was doing. it knew, they were driving people to those extreme viewpoints and they knew it years ago. and a senior reporter for nbc news who brought carroll story to our attention is, brandi and she joins me now. , brandi brandy zadrozny take us there and now and what was it based on and what was the researchers trying to do in creating these profiles. yes, hey chris. this was a one up tens of thousands of
running their own experiments and saying that we have a problem here. yes, the first step that i did when i got all of these documents is i meet a list of all the researchers that i had been talking to for the last half decade, who had been calling these warning signs and been calling the platform, especially for the recommendation. and, i got one stanford researcher on the phone and i was looking over these documents with her, and she was so angry. because you re exactly right. facebook comes and gaslights us for years saying that that s not happening on the platform. you really can t say that. that s not fair. it s actually quite nice for your grandchildren. and they knew the whole time, they knew the whole time. brandy zadrozny great reporting and thank you for sharing with us tonight. in. coming up her new and a national reckoning each parked in the five years since he took the heat. do not go anywhere.
network, fox news, this will certainly be fun to watch from the, sidelines that is our broadcast for this monday evening. as we start a new week with our thanks for being here with us, on behalf of all of our colleagues at the networks of nbc news, goodnight clearly the direction of the committee is to look at that premeditation to make sure that we identify. new details on what was happening inside the trump war room during the insurrection, and one new reporting and republican members have aoc and other members calling for explosion. today is the day american patriot start taking down names and kicking asked. then carole s journey to qanon. explosive new reporting on what facebook knew about how it