New: FB researchers warned execs late last summer that 70% of the platform’s most active civic Groups were toxic. Facebook quietly began reining Groups in – then scrambled as the measures weren’t enough. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knew-calls-for-violence-plagued-groups-now-plans-overhaul-11612131374?st=vcnog03qc4ezth8&reflink=article_copyURL_share

The situation was really bad. “Financially motivated Albanians” repeatedly building up Groups with more followers than all but a handful of top-tier American newspapes have subscribers, for example. The most successful groups were toxic.

Facebook was more ready to listen than it had been about past earnings on Groups. Disabling recommendation algorithms was a start. But then #StoptheSteal Groups blew up thanks to other growth-friendly product design features. The problem wasn’t just “bad algorithms!”

Letting members invite thousands of users to new groups per day. Injecting “previews” of Group content in newsfeed, then auto-joining users who engage. Allowing Groups to get big before integrity systems kicked in. These were choices — that are now being rethought by FB.

@wiczipedia, @CCDHate and @Mozilla all raised prescient concerns about FB Groups – but the smarts/depth of FB’s own research is breathtaking. Here’s hoping it gets shared with outside academics one day, so talk of FB’s societal impact doesn’t depend on what falls off the truck.

I worry that publishing this kind of stuff dampens FB’s interest in introspection (though the Civic team kinda got reorg’d pretty hard last month already). So it’s worth pointing out that I don’t know any other platform doing this caliber of self-examination work.

Mark Zuckerberg talked about rethinking Groups and even the platform’s approach to politics earlier this week. Here’s hoping that the company offers details — or that more falls off the truck.