In a 1,300-word note posted Tuesday on Facebook, Zuckerberg tried to refute Haugen’s charges, claiming she painted “a false picture of the company.” It’s tough for Facebook to argue against its own research.”
Or as Levy puts it, “Frances Haugen is Facebook’s Snowden. “The whistleblower provided evidence that proves every bad thing on Facebook is the result of conscious choices by management,” McNamee said. “This is about profits over people, which is much easier to understand.”īut most importantly, the reason this might finally be the nail in Facebook’s coffin is the documentation. “It’s not just a lot of digital gobbledygook about algorithms and platforms,” said Tom Wheeler, a technology regulation advocate and former FCC Chairman from 2013 to 2017. What’s more, both Congress and the public in general are no longer playing catch up. “It was authoritative and utterly convincing.” ”Her testimony was devastating,” said McNamee. “This one has the potential to be different.”ĭifferent how? It helps that Haugen, the human face of this scandal, comes across as credible and well-spoken. “Each scandal builds on the foundation of scandals that came before it,” he said. Though the controversy may seem like business as usual - Facebook gets outed for being morally corrupt, apologizes, gets wrist slapped - some, like Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor, Zuckerberg advisor and author of “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” say it’s anything but. “Note: Please find me a company in this consumerist wasteland that HASN’T!” “OMG You mean Facebook prioritized it’s profits over the public GOOD!?!?” tweeted “The Office” actor Rainn Wilson. “It reminded me of identical hollow threats when Zuckerberg testified in 2018,” he said.Ĭynicism was the prevalent emotion even among big tech novices. But what pols plan to do about it is unclear. Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, testified before the Senate last week during a hearing into how Facebook damages the mental health of young people and spreads misinformation. Markey of Massachusetts, who called Haugen a “21st-century American hero,” announced to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that “your time of invading our privacy, promoting toxic content and preying on children and teens is over,” Levy was unimpressed. “It has nothing but bluster when it comes to cracking down on toxic content that does not violate the law.” “The more obvious solutions - increasing privacy protection - have been known for years, and Congress has done little or nothing,” he said. Steven Levy, author of “ Facebook: The Inside Story,” told The Post that we’ve been down this road before. Maybe it was, as Blumenthal promised, analogous to the fall of Big Tobacco. In testimony that lasted over three hours, she accused the company of ignoring internal research that showed the harm it was causing to young users - particularly teen girls, 13.5 percent of whom said that Instagram increased their thoughts of suicide, according to one internal study - and being dishonest about its efforts to police hate speech and misinformation.Īs proof, Haugen provided thousands of pages of internal research documents that she’d copied during her time as an employee.Įven though Haugen claimed she wasn’t there to destroy her former employer - “I have a huge amount of empathy for Facebook,” she assured the subcommittee - it did seem like it might be the beginning of the end for the social media giant. That employee, Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old Harvard grad and two-year vet of Facebook as a product manager, said during the hearing that she initially joined the company “because I think Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us.”īut she left and went public with her concerns after determining that “Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy.” This was the prediction made last Tuesday by Richard Blumenthal, the 75-year-old senator from Connecticut, at the beginning of a Senate subcommittee hearing examining allegations against Facebook brought by a former employee. “Facebook and Big Tech are facing a Big Tobacco moment, a moment of reckoning.” What the Zuck? Mark angrily accuses whistleblowers, media of plotting against Facebook amid bad pressįacebook has struggled to fight human trafficking, leaked documents show Only 2 Border Patrol agents fired over ‘explicit’ posts in secret Facebook groupĪ name change can’t erase the evil Facebook released
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