Meta had a team for Facebook that was supposed to address the negative impacts of the company. This involved both hardware and software solutions. However, Meta has now dissolved the team.
Social networks like Facebook can have social impacts. Meta, the company behind Facebook, established a team for this reason. Its purpose was to address potential negative impacts of its products.
But now the team has been dissolved, although they intend to continue the work elsewhere.
The team was supposed to address “potential downsides of the products”
What kind of team was it exactly? Meta (then still Facebook) had established the “Responsible Innovation Team,” which basically means “Team for Responsible Innovations,” to tackle potential downsides of the company’s products.
The team was formed after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as major social networks had also been used as instruments for the election. This was presumably seen as an area for improvement back then at Facebook/Meta.
The team’s task was to investigate ethical concerns related to the company’s products and whether all individuals using these services were truly equal.
Team dissolved, work to continue
What has happened now? Meta has stated that it has dissolved the ethics team. This is reported by the Wall Street Journal. However, the employees will not be laid off but are to continue working in other positions. The commission itself will no longer exist.
Why was the team dissolved? Meta does not provide a clear statement on this. However, a spokesperson stated that the company believes its resources for safe and ethical product design could be better invested in more topic-specific teams.
Others suspect that the commission may have been too thorough in its work. For instance, the online magazine PCGamer sarcastically remarks, “Meta disbands the internal team that asks ‘Are we [perhaps] the baddies?’ suggesting that Meta may not have wanted to hear the extensive criticism from the team.
More news around social media and beyond: Are you looking for more exciting news on social media? A major topic currently is the metaverse. And the head of Steam has not hesitated to share his thoughts on it:
Steam boss Newell says: Many who rave about the metaverse have probably never played an MMO.
