Facebook Products ‘Harm Youths, Stoke Division’ - Whistleblower

By Staff, Agencies

A whistleblower accused Facebook of putting profit before people as she told Congress its products harm the mental health of some young users, stoke divisions and weaken democracy.

During a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing, Frances Haugen called for transparency about how Facebook entices users to keep scrolling, creating ample opportunity for advertisers to reach them.

“As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable,” said Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team. She left the nearly $1 trillion company with tens of thousands of confidential documents.

“The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed,” Haugen said.

Her testimony came a day after Facebook and two of its main services, Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp, suffered an hours-long global outage, and after weeks of mounting pressure on the social media company to explain its policies for young users.

Haugen went public in an interview with CBS on October 3 and revealed she was the one who provided documents used in a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram’s alleged harm.