Facebook Whistleblower provided tens of thousands of internal documents to federal regulators which reportedly show that the company lied about its ability to combat hate, violence, and misinformation on its platform. This same ex-Facebook employee plans on testifying on Tuesday before Congress about the company “turning a blind eye” to harm caused by its products, including the impact on teens’ mental health.
The public is anticipating hearing directly from the whistleblower, who is believed to have provided The Wall Street Journal with documents as part of its Facebook Files series. According to the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, she says she wants to fix the company, and not harm it. This former Facebook employee says her goal is to help prompt change at the social-media giant.
The former Facebook Inc. employee who gathered documents that formed the foundation of The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series stated that she acted to help prompt change at the social media giant, not to stir anger towards it. Frances Haugen, a former product manager hired to help protect against election interference on Facebook, said she had grown frustrated by what she saw as the company’s lack of openness about its platforms’ potential for harm as well as the unwillingness to address its flaws.
Facebook Whistleblower What Happened?
Facebook whistleblower what happened? According to Frances Haugen, “The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money”.
Frances Haugen is a 37-year-old data scientist who hails from Iowa. Haugen worked at Facebook for close to two years as a product manager in the company’s civic integrity team. Her job was mostly focused on tracking the spread of misinformation on the platform as well as ensuring that the platform was not used to destabilize democracy.
Before working at Facebook, the 37-year-old engineer had a successful tech career, working as a product manager at several top tech firms, including Google, Pinterest, and Yelp. While pursuing a management programme at Harvard Business School in 2010, Frances co-founded a dating platform known as Secret Agent Cupid. This later became the popular dating app ‘Hinge’, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Facebook Whistleblower Live
Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen is scheduled to testify before Congress live on Tuesday. She has also sought federal whistleblower protection with Securities and Exchange Commission. Facebook has been anxious to know since last month when an anonymous former employee filed complaints with federal law enforcement. The complaint is of the opinion that Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation as well as political unrest, but the company hides what it knows. One of the complaints alleges that Facebook’s Instagram harms teenage girls. Why Haugen’s complaints are unprecedented is the trove of private Facebook research she took when she quit in May. The documents first appeared, last month, in the Wall Street Journal.
Tonight, Frances Haugen is revealing her identity to explain why she became the Facebook whistleblower.
Facebook Whistleblower Information
Frances Haugen, who worked at Facebook for two years, left in May claiming that the company is aware of how its platforms are used in spreading misinformation, hate, and violence. On Sunday, in an episode of CBS” 60 Minutes”, the whistleblower revealed her identity. Crises deepened for the social media network after Haugen testified before a Senate Subcommittee Tuesday accusing Facebook of harming children, and weakening democracy. Haugen’s revelations are particularly significant as Facebook has been under the scanner in recent years for not doing enough in order to prevent hate speech online and to protect the data of its vast user base.
Facebook Whistleblower Video
Click on this link to watch the Facebook whistleblower video youtube.com/watch?v=_Lx5VmAdZSI
Facebook Whistleblower Summary
In Haugen’s ‘60 Minutes’ interview, Haugen said that she began to lose faith in Facebook soon after the team was disbanded. The work which was previously done by the civic integrity team was then divided between a number of different departments, Facebook later said. However, the company was not doing enough to prevent misinformation, she contended.
There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public as well as what was good for Facebook, she stressed during the interview. “And Facebook over and over again choose to optimize for its own interests like making more money”. Haugen accused the social media platform of lying about the level of progress it has made in combating hate speech online. Also, Haugen went as far as claiming that Facebook was used to plan the Capitol riot on January 6, after the company chose to turn off safety systems following the US presidential elections.
In September, Haugen filed around eight complaints with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It alleged that Facebook was not disclosing research about its shortcomings from investors as well as the public, CNN reported. Haugen also leaked tens of thousands of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal, which then published a series of reports. Showing that Facebook was aware of the negative effects of misinformation as well as the harm that it causes, particularly to teenage girls, but was doing little to stop it.
However, Haugen stated that her goal is not to get people to hate Facebook. “I don’t hate Facebook. I love Facebook. I want to save it”, Haugen wrote in her final message on Facebook’s internal system, right before she left Facebook.
A report by The Journal on how Facebook’s own research shows that Instagram hurts teen girls, led to a Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee hearing last week.
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