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
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
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.
Engagement-based ranking on Facebook is ‘inherently dangerous’
Ms Haugen says that engagement-based ranking in the Facebook newsfeed is inherently dangerous.
“Facebook’s own research says they cannot adequately identify dangerous content and as a result those dangerous algorithms that they admit are picking up the extreme sentiments, the division — they can’t protect us from the harms that they know exist in their own system.”,
Young users being led towards content relating to eating disorders
Says Ms Haugen: “Facebook knows engagement-based ranking, the way they pick the content in Instagram for young users, for all users, amplifies preferences ... They’ve done something called a proactive incident response where they take things that they heard, for example, can you be led by the algorithms to anorexia content and they have literally recreated this experiment and confirmed yes, this happens to people.”
Children are bullied differently today
Ms Haugen explains that the environment in which children are bullied today is different because of social media.
“The kids that are on Instagram, the bullying follows them home. Into their bedrooms. The last thing they see before they go to bed is someone being cruel. The first thing they see in the morning ... Think about how that’s going to impact their domestic relationships”
More on bullying
“Facebook knows that parents today -- because they never experienced this addictive experience -- give their children bad advice. They say, ‘Why don’t you just stop using it?’”
“So Facebook’s own researchers are aware that children express feelings of loneliness and struggling with these things because they can’t even get support from their own parents...”
Changes were not made to prevent strife around world
We have heard today about how Facebook has played a role in strife in Ethiopia and Myanmar, as well as unrest in Europe, and domestically in the US.
Ms Haugen told Senator Cantwell that Mr Zuckerberg was told of changes that could be made to prevent the platform from enabling that, but did not do anything.
‘A 21st century American hero'
Great praise for Ms Haugen from Senator Markey for sounding the alarm bell about Facebook.
“You are a 21st century American hero ... and our nation owes you a huge debt of gratitude.”
Facebook spokesperson pushes back on Twitter
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone is pushing back in real-time to Ms Haugen’s testimony on Twitter. He says that Ms Haugen did not work on child safety issues at the company — though she has acknowledged this in her responses to the senators’ questions.
The subcommittee is taking recess
The subcommittee has taken a break from proceedings. It. worth noting that this is one of the rare moments of unity between Republicans and Democrats in Congress — they may have differing motives, but they also have a common foe.
Lots of tough talk from the committee members so far.
Senator Markey in particular is not holding back.
“Here’s my message for Mark Zuckerberg — Your time of invading our privacy, promoting toxic content and preying on children and teens is over. Congress will be taking action. You can work with us or not work with us.”
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments