Facebook and YouTube can’t keep up with pledge to keep whistleblower’s alleged name off their platforms

Despite pledges to remove the alleged name of the whistleblower whose report started the Ukraine scandal, Facebook and YouTube haven’t been able to keep up.

• The name appears in thousands of Facebook posts and YouTube videos, according to New York Times analysis.
• Both platforms appear to be using a combination of human reviewers and automation to seek out content that mention the name.
• Both sites as well as Facebook owned Instagram have also taken steps to prevent search terms related to the whistleblower from appearing or triggering “suggested search” features.
• Twitter has notably not said it will ban mentions of the name, citing a policy that only blocks personal information from being shared if it contains more detailed identifying details, such as an address, social security number or other more personal data.

Why it matters: Not discounting the fact the name has not been confirmed and could potential endanger the person named (whether he or she is the whistleblower or not), the inability of the sites to successfully filter out content as announced showcases the wider concerns of how powerful these platforms can be when spreading unconfirmed or sensitive information.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter users have gotten creative to evade the platform’s detection tools.

• For example, while it would be relatively simply for any platform to simply prevent users from posting the name (and variations thereof) in text content, some posters have gotten creative by including the name in the image accompanying a post or in the URL path users are directed to.
• While these approaches could potentially be flagged using, for example, character recognition technology, there’s also a variety of ways to obfuscate the text in the image to evade detection.
• Reddit has also become a popular alternative, along with Twitter, to bypass the Facebook and YouTube rules and potential takedowns.

Most media outlets that publish content that’s edited before being released have opted not to use the name.