Facebook wishes it could ‘hit delete’ on Andrew Bosworth’s memo

Andrew Bosworth sent an infamous 2016 memo, titled “The
Ugly.”
Andrew
Bosworth

• Facebook executive Niamh Sweeney told lawmakers in
  Ireland that Facebook wishes it could “hit delete” on an
  infamous memo sent by VP Andrew Bosworth.
• The memo, titled “The Ugly,” was sent in 2016 and
  claimed that any growth on the platform is “de facto good” even
  if it leads to people being harmed or killed.
• It was brought up in the wake of a Channel 4
  investigation, which showed a Facebook moderator saying that
  controversial content drives engagement.

A controversial memo sent in 2016 by Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s
augmented and virtual-reality vice president, continues to haunt
the company.

The email,
which was leaked to BuzzFeed earlier this year, claimed that
any growth on Facebook is “de facto good,” even if it leads to
people being harmed or killed.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally
denounced the memo in March, saying it contained sentiments
that “most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with
strongly.”

Now, a Facebook executive has said that they wish they could “hit
delete” on the email.

Niamh Sweeney, head of public policy at Facebook Ireland, told a
committee of Irish lawmakers on Wednesday that the views
expressed by Bosworth do not represent those of the company.

She was pressed on the email after a moderator at Facebook’s
Irish contractor, CPL Resources, was filmed by an undercover Channel 4
reporter last month saying that “if you start censoring
too much, then people lose interest in the platform.” The
moderator added: “It’s all about making money at the end of the
day.”

Irish lawmakers quoted Bosworth’s email and asked Sweeney whether
Facebook profits from violent content.

She responded: “I think a lot of us would like to go back and hit
delete before he ever managed to send that… His views as
expressed in that post absolutely do not represent the views of
the company, we’d never stand over them and it was taken up with
him at the very highest level by Mr Mark Zuckerberg.”

Sweeney also reiterated previous statements from Bosworth that
even he did not believe in what he was writing. “Mr Bosworth, or
‘Boz’ as he is known within the company, has a reputation for
posting provocative material to get a conversation going,” she
said.