Facebook Led Test User In India To Gore, Fake News In Just 21 Days

Facebook's growth largely comes from countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, where it has struggled to hire people with the language skills to impose even basic oversigh

In February 2019, Facebook Inc. set up a test account in India to determine how its own algorithms affect what people see in one of its fastest growing  and most important overseas markets. The results stunned the company's own staff.

Within three weeks, the new user's feed turned into a maelstrom of fake news and incendiary images. There were graphic photos of beheadings, doctored images of India air strikes against Pakistan and jingoistic scenes of violence. One group for "things that make you laugh" included fake news of 300 terrorists who died in a bombing in Pakistan. 

"I've seen more images of dead people in the past 3 weeks than I've seen in my entire life total," one staffer wrote, according to a 46-page research note that's among the trove of documents released by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. 

The test proved telling because it was designed to focus exclusively on Facebook's role in recommending content. The trial account used the profile of a 21-year-old woman living in Jaipur and hailing from Hyderabad. The user only followed pages or groups recommended by Facebook or encountered through those recommendations. The experience was termed an "integrity nightmare," by the author of the research note.