In an interview with 60 Minutes, Frances Haugen has revealed that he is the person he has shared internal Facebook documents to the press. The former employee of the social network says she acted because she was alarmed by what she had seen. According to Haugen, Facebook “prefers profits to safety” and she wanted to make public the documents that could prove it.
The former Facebook employee blames the company: profits first, safety second
In May, the founder of the non-profit Whistleblower Aid, who gives legal support to people who want to reveal illegal documents from their government or the company they work for, received a phone call. From what he calls “a very brave person who is taking a personal risk in facing a trillion dollar company”.
This person revealed himself to the public on Sunday, in an interview with 60 Minutes, the television program that made the history of American journalism. Her name is Frances Haugen and she explained that: “I’ve seen a lot of social networks and Facebook was definitely worse than anything I’ve seen. Facebook, from time to time, has shown that it prefers profits to safety“.
Haugen recently provided information to Wall Street Journal. Internal documents that revealed, among other things, that Instagram would have avoided publishing a study on the effect of Instagram on the psyche of minors. In addition to revelations about a different tracking system for famous people compared to the other. And a system of insufficient control in many parts of the world. All information that Haugen also shared with the Congress of the United States and will also have to talk about it with politicians in the UK and in Europe.
Facebook knew about the dangers of fake news
Haugen reiterated that although the company had “publicized its work to combat disinformation and violent extremism after the 2020 election and the January 6 uprising”, it was already aware of all these problems. “Actually, Facebook he knew his algorithms and platforms promoted this type of dangerous content and has failed to internally provide recommended and long-lasting countermeasures ”.
Facebook did not directly respond to the allegations on Sunday. But Facebook’s vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg sent a note to employees saying the interview would be “misleading“. And on CNN he explained that Facebook reflects “the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity” but is trying to “mitigate the bad, reduce it and amplify the good”.
But with the information coming to the press and the policy decided to intervene, there will be more chapters of this saga in the coming weeks. We will keep you informed on the evolution of this story.