Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who was a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, spoke to CBS News’ Scott Pelley on September 16 and revealed that the social media giant repeatedly chose ‘profit over safety’ when it came to clamping down on misinformation and hate speech. Haugen also alleged that Facebook aided in the organisation of the January 6 Capitol riot by failing to curb hate speech against Joe Biden. The full-length interview was aired under CBS’ “60 minutes” segment on Sunday.
“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 optimise for its own interests like making more money,” said Haugen during the interview.
After giving up her position at the company, Haugen shared the thousands of pages of internal research and communications she acquired with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents suggested that Facebook’s shift in algorithm facilitates increased political polarisation, violence and divisiveness.
“Facebook’s mission is to connect people all around the world,” said Haugen, adding that, “When you have a system that you know can be hacked with anger, it's easier to provoke people into anger. And publishers are saying – oh, if I do more angry, polarizing, divisive content, I get more money. Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart.”
Haugen further claimed that Facebook aided in organising the Capitol riots and their intended impact on American citizens. Motivated by “misaligned incentives,” she said, Facebook prematurely turned off safety systems that were designed to restrict political misinformation and slander, thereby allowing anti-Biden comments.
Facebook refused a full-length “60 minutes” interview with CBS News responding to Haugen’s claims; however, the social media giant did provide a statement in their defence. “Every day our teams have to balance protecting the right of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place. We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true,” said Lena Pietsch, Facebook’s director of policy communications, in the statement.
Refuting the alleged role of Facebook in the January 6 Capitol riots, Pietsch said: “We spent more than two years preparing for the 2020 election with massive investments. In phasing in and then adjusting additional emergency measures before, during and after the election, we took into account specific on-platforms signals and information from our ongoing, regular engagement with law enforcement. When those signals changed, so did the measures. It is wrong to claim that these steps were the reason for January 6th – the measures we did need remained in place through February, and some like not recommending new, civic, or political groups remain in place to this day. These were all part of a much longer and larger strategy to protect the election on our platform and we are proud of that work.”
Pietsch also claimed that rather than manipulating public opinion against Biden after the riots, Facebook undertook the role of divulging information on the actual organisers of the riots. “Facebook has taken extraordinary steps to address harmful content and we’ll continue to do our part. We also aggressively worked with law enforcement, both before January 6 and in the days and weeks since, with the goal of ensuring that evidence linking the people responsible for January 6th to their crimes is available for prosecutors,” read her statement.
In other news, all Facebook-owned apps, including Instagram and Whatsapp, faced mass outage on Monday night starting from around 9pm IST. The company did not specify a specific reason for the global outage, but tweeted: “We are aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience.” The outage came only a day after Haugen’s revelations became public. Certain sources have linked the “peculiar” sequence of the two events one after the other.
Meanwhile, the company has also been accused of allowing toxic content harmful to teenage girls. A Senate hearing on the matter, titled ‘Protecting Kids Online’, will take place on Tuesday, when Haugen will testify against Facebook and provide evidence for its knowledge of content that sells but is not safe.
Haugen herself has filed at least eight complaints with the US Securities Department accusing Facebook of withholding information in relation to its propagandist inclinations, and placing her at risk.
Towards the end of her interview, Haugen demanded that Facebook declares “moral bankruptcy” and takes accountability for knowingly inciting violence and anger. “The reason I came forward is because Facebook has been struggling. They’ve been hiding information…and we need to not solve problems alone, we need to solve them together. And that’s why I came forward,” were her concluding statements.
Facebook Chose ‘Profit Over Safety’, Aided Capitol Riots, Says Whistleblower
Facebook whistleblower and former product manager Frances Haugen revealed on Sunday that the company aided the January 6 Capitol riots, and repeatedly chose to profit off of anti-Biden hate speech.
October 5, 2021
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen talks with CBS‘ Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes in an episode recorded on September 16 that aired on Sunday. SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS