Facebook whistleblower - Haugen called ‘21st century hero’ by Senate as Zuckerberg told toxic time is up
Frances Haugen urges government to regulate social media company
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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has testified before a Senate hearing, urging the government to regulate the social media company.
In a rare moment of unity seldom seen in Congress, Ms Haugen responded to in-depth questions from lawmakers from both parties concerning the impact of social media on children, concerns about national security, and what her specific recommendations are for reforming the sector.
The testimony adds to Ms Haugen’s interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, said that the social network repeatedly prioritised “growth over safety” and is “tearing our societies apart”.
Facebook’s stock plummeted on Monday in the aftermath of Ms Haugen’s interview and as its companies experienced an extended service outage.
It was the worst session performance for the company in nearly a year with the share price falling 4.9 per cent – the worst decline since the five per cent drop recorded on 9 November 2020.
According to her written testimony, which is to be heard by the Senate Commerce subcommittee on Tuesday, Ms Haugen will compare the social media giant’s practices to those in the tobacco and motoring industries.
“When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action,” Ms Haugen said in her written testimony. “I implore you to do the same here.”
Earlier this year, Ms Haugen left Facebook, where she worked as a member of its misinformation team. Prior to leaving her role, she copied a series of internal memos and documents that have been shared by The Wall Street Journal over the past three weeks.
Haugen stands with researchers
Ms Haugen says she stands with Facebook’s researchers.
“Some of the biggest heroes inside the company are the researchers,” she says, adding that the fact that Facebook is “throwing them under the bus” is unacceptable.
A potential ‘scary future’ for children
Children are a big focus of the hearing today and what impact social media will have on them in the future.
Ms Haugen is especially concerned. She warns about a “scary future” for children and their relationships if they grow up without a feedback loop of seeing a person’s reaction when you say something to them in person, versus through the internet with no immediate response or consequences.
“They learn to be incredibly cruel to each other,” she says.
Further to that, children feel they cannot stop for fear of being ostracised.
When asked how Facebook can be compared to big tobacco in its efforts to hook young people, Ms Haugen says that there are little “dopamine hits” delivered by getting likes and comments on posts on social media and that they are scared of being disconnected from their friends and peers and that they may miss out.
Facebook’s own research on Instagram included quotes from children saying that they feel bad when they use Instagram but they can’t stop, she told the subcommittee.
Hearing wraps up with emotional text from Blumenthal constituent
Senator Blumenthal closes the hearing by reading out an emotional text he received from a constituent in Connecticut who says he is “in tears” watching Ms Haugen’s testimony.
He writes that his daughter developed severe anorexia following extensive use of Instagram.
“I fear she will never be the same.”
Isolated people most exposed to misinformation
Ms Haugen testified: “Facebook knows that the people who are mostly exposed to most misinformation are people who are recently widowed, divorced, move to a new city, and isolated in some other way.”
Senator Lee presents examples of Facebook ads targeted at children
Voices: Will we finally see a fall in the influence of social media companies?
Will we finally see a fall in the influence of social media companies? | Hamish McRae
I believe we are reaching a peak – the latest outage raises an important question about what our limits should be, writes Hamish McRae
Haugen ‘against the breaking up of Facebook’
One of the proposals for reforming and regulating the social media environment that has been floated on both sides of the Atlantic is for Facebook — and other tech giants — to be broken up.
Facebook is often singled out for its failure to deal with misinformation, privacy issues, and its track record of buying up or copying smaller rivals.
Ms Haugen believes that dissolved the social media behemoth will do little to deal with these concerns as the underlying problem will still be the algorithms and engagement-based ranking of newsfeeds as she described several times in her testimony.
“What I’m scared of is that Facebook is the internet for lots of the world. If you go to Africa, the internet is Facebook. If you split Facebook and Instagram apart, it’s likely that most advertising dollars would go to Instagram and Facebook will continue to be this Frankenstein that is endangering lives around the world. Only now there won’t be money [from advertisers] to fund it.”
This she argued would make it harder to deal with problems based on what people see in newsfeeds as there are limits on what artificial intelligence can address in terms of problematic content.
“These systems are going to continue to exist and be dangerous even if broken up,” she argued, suggesting a more collaborative approach would be more effective.
What is Section 230?
Lawmakers have floated scrapping or reforming part of a piece of legislation — the 1996 Communications Decency Act, specifically Section 230 — as one way of forcing big tech companies to take a tougher stance towards moderating content on their platforms.
Here’s a short explainer from the AP about the rule that made the modern internet.
All about Section 230, a rule that made the modern internet
Twenty-six words tucked into a 1996 law overhauling telecommunications have allowed companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to grow into the giants they are today
‘The buck stops with Mark’
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen accused the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, of putting “profits over people” despite allegedly knowing that his site is harming children and societies in general around the world during Senate testimony.
She and senators at the hearing on Monday laid blame for issues stemming from the site at Mr Zuckerberg’s feet, with Ms Haugen declaring: “The buck stops with Mark. There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself.”
John Bowden reports for The Independent from Washington, DC.
Facebook whistleblower says Zuckerberg knows site harms children
Facebook whistleblower says company has hid information about dangers of its platforms from public
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