Former Facebook employee who strongly criticizes Congress

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Washington Former Facebook data scientists reveal the company’s perception from Instagram that it clearly harms some teens and blames anti-hate and disinformation fraud, and lawmakers and the general public surprised citizens. Now she’s before Congress.

Frances Haugen has raised many criticisms of Facebook, but is backed up by tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents that she secretly copied before quitting her job in Facebook’s Civil Integrity Department. Haugen also filed a complaint with federal officials alleging that Facebook’s own investigation shows it amplifies hatred, disinformation and political instability, but the company is hiding what it knows.

Hogen revealed her identity in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night after a recent Wall Street Journal article based on a document she leaked to the newspaper sparked public protests. “Facebook has repeatedly shown that it prefers profit to security,” she said.

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Former employee challenging social media giant with 2.8 billion users worldwide and nearly $ 1,000 billion in market value is Iowa 37 with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and a master’s in commerce from Harvard. A one-year data expert. After working for 15 years, she was hired by Facebook in 2019 at companies like Google and Pinterest.

Haugen will testify before the Senate Trade Subcommittee on Consumer Protection at a hearing on Tuesday.

The panel is investigating whether Facebook uses information from its own researchers on Instagram. This shows that it may harm some young users, especially girls, but publicly minimizes the negative effects. For some devoted teens to Facebook’s popular photo-sharing platform, the peer pressure generated by visually-targeted Instagram is causing mental health and body image issues, and in some cases, it has caused disturbances in their minds. diet and suicidal ideation. ..

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An internal study cited 13.5% of teenage girls who said Instagram exacerbated their thoughts of suicide and 17% of teenage girls who said they exacerbated eating disorders.

“And very tragically, according to Facebook’s own research, they become more and more depressed as these young women start consuming this eating disorder content,” Hogen said in a television interview. .. “And that causes them to use the app more, so they fall into that feedback cycle and become more and more hated by their bodies.” ”

Last week, Facebook suspended development of Instagram for kids, primarily tweens aged 10 to 12, due to a widespread PR error on Instagram searches.

Senators are excited to hear from Hogen.

“We look forward to asking him a follow-up question to find out why Facebook hasn’t taken action to resolve the platform issue, even though Facebook’s internal investigation reflects a major issue.” D-Minn Senator Amy Klobuchar said. The subcommittee told The Associated Press on Monday. “I would like to discuss how Facebook’s algorithms promote harmful and disruptive content, and how much Facebook actually benefits children.”

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The problem is an algorithm that manages what the user sees in the news feed and how they like the offensive content. According to Haugen, the content flow changes of 2018 helped create more fragmented and malicious networks on the surface to bring people together. Despite the hostility the new algorithm brings, Facebook has found it helps people come back. It’s a model that has helped social media giants sell more digital ads that generate the majority of their revenue.

Haugen’s reviews go beyond Instagram. She said in an interview that Facebook prematurely deactivated safeguards designed to thwart false information and incitement to violence after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year.

After the November elections, Facebook dissolved a genuine citizens’ union where Haugen worked. She said that was the moment she realized, “I don’t think Facebook is really willing to invest what it needs to keep it from becoming dangerous.

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Haugen said Facebook executives said they lost friends to an online conspiracy theory when they hired her and asked them to work in the area of ​​a company that combats fake news.

Facebook’s head of global security Antigone Davis was criticized by the trade panel senator at a hearing last Thursday. They accused Facebook of hiding its negative findings on Instagram and asked the company to commit to making changes.

Davis has championed Instagram’s efforts to protect young people using the platform. She took issue with how the Wall Street Journal article explains what the study shows.

Facebook maintains that Haugen’s claim is misleading and that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that it is the main cause of social polarization.

“Even with the most sophisticated technology that we think we are deploying, even though we employ tens of thousands of employees to keep the platform secure and consistent. , This will never completely exceed 100%. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of policy and public relations, spoke on CNN’s “trusted source” on Sunday.

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This is due to Facebook’s “instantaneous and spontaneous form of communication”, Craig said, adding that “I think a rational person does more than they can expect.”

Mr Haugen said he hopes moving forward will help the government curtail Facebook activities. Like tech giants Google, Amazon, and Apple, Facebook has enjoyed minimal regulation in Washington for years.

Outside of Monday, a major global outage disrupted Facebook, Instagram, and the company’s WhatsApp messaging platform, phasing out at the end of Eastern Standard Time on Monday. For some users, WhatsApp worked for a while, but it didn’t. For others, Instagram worked, but Facebook didn’t.

Facebook did not indicate the cause of the outage, which began around 11:40 a.m. EDT and was not fixed after more than 6 hours.

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Follow Marcy Gordon on https://twitter.com/mgordonap

Copyright 2021 AP communication. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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