Last night on “60 Minutes” the Facebook whistleblower revealed herself as Frances Haugen, a former manager in Facebook’s former Civic Integrity Unit, and reiterated she came forward to help fix Facebook, not harm it.
Haugen has handed over a trove of documents to Congress, The Wall Street Journal, and the Securities Exchange Commission. Haugen spoke with Scott Pelley about practices allowed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to increase engagement with angry content led to increased division and violence.
To be clear, Zuckerberg didn’t “allow” choices to be made, he set the tone through his leadership as CEO, the most powerful controller of Facebook.
A spokesperson’s response:
“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.”
The problem with Facebook’s argument is that, as the whistleblower has shown, Facebook knows exactly how bad it is for the world. Sure, helping families connect is a good thing, but it comes at a huge cost. Facebook knows exactly what that cost is, and has intentionally decided it’s worth it to keep the profit machine going. That’s on Zuckerberg.
Inc.
Watch the entire “60 Minutes” interview below.
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