Can you please explain this (new) Facebook scandal?
Leaked documents, whistleblowers, congressional hearings and more — there's a lot going on with Facebook. We're here to catch you up.
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This week, we’re tackling this question: Can you please explain this (new) Facebook scandal?
TL;DR: It’s been a busy few weeks for Facebook. After a whistleblower armed with troves of documents leaked them to the Wall Street Journal, an explosive series of stories came out, proving that the platform was more aware of its issues than executives have let on. The whistleblower has revealed herself as former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, and she spoke to U.S. Senators at a congressional committee hearing.
Facebook has been through more than its fair share of strife over the past few years: Cambridge Analytica, disagreements over paying news publishers, Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. federal election, censorship in Turkey, lawsuits over failing to stop anti-Muslim hate, internal messages leaked and much more. But this scandal is new, and immense.
The explosive story
Last week, the Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell story based on a review of internal Facebook documents, “including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.” The documents and the reporters’ analysis show that not only has Facebook’s highest management level known about various issues with the platform, but that they have routinely failed to fix them despite promises to the contrary.
Some of those issues are:
The company is well aware that Instagram is incredibly harmful for young girls, even increasing suicidal ideations.
Certain VIPs are exempt from Facebook’s rules through a program called “cross check,” originally intended as a quality-control measure for high-profile accounts, like celebrities and politicians. Many take advantage, sometimes spreading misinformation and abuse.
An algorithm change in 2018 actually made the platform angrier. Staff members warned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but he was worried that reversing the changes would reduce engagement.
Employees say that the company’s response to dangerous activity happening on the platform globally, such as human trafficking and inciting violence against ethnic minorities, is ineffectual and slow.
Researchers who study social media already knew a lot of this information — especially that social media can be harmful for the mental health of young women (and well, cough, everyone). But Facebook has refused to admit the extent of that harm, even though these documents show they were aware.
The whistleblower revealed
Frances Haugen is the former Facebook employee who leaked the trove of documents. She revealed her identity on Sunday night on 60 Minutes.
Haugen is a former product manager for Facebook, working there for almost two years. She has also worked at Hinge, Yelp, Google and Pinterest, meaning she has familiarity with many of the algorithms that make these platforms successful.
At Facebook, she studied how the site’s algorithm amplified misinformation and led to a host of other negative effects. (Interesting note: Facebook dissolved its civic integrity team in 2020.) Stunned by what she knew, she copied thousands of pages of confidential documents before she left and shared them with lawmakers, regulators and the Journal.
The congressional hearings
Haugen testified to the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security on Tuesday (which just so happened to be the same day of an hours-long outage of all Facebook platforms).
She told them that Facebook's products "harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” prioritizing “astronomical profits” over all else and forgoing any moral responsibility.
Meanwhile, late Tuesday, Zuckerberg posted a statement over 1,000 words long to his Facebook page, criticizing the testimony and saying that the documents and research had been misinterpreted.
But Haugen is still hopeful about the future of the platform.
"Facebook can change, but is clearly not going to do so on its own. ... Congress can change the rules that Facebook plays by and stop the many harms it is causing,” she said, recommending that the platform stops using likes and comments and moves its algorithm away from an engagement focus.
In Canada, the re-elected Liberal government has said it plans to legislate against social media hate speech in its first 100 days. Advocates have suggested fines and potential criminal charges against tech executives.
U.S. Senators called Haugen a “hero” for coming forward and said they want to hear more from her soon — they’re even united across partisan lines to address this.
“Francis Haugen wants to fix Facebook, not burn it to the ground,” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut observed.
Here’s someone to follow:
Omayra Issa is a national reporter with CBC News, frequently covering enterprise and investigative stories related to equity and community. She co-created the broadcaster’s Black On the Prairies series, an amazing set of stories exploring what it means to be Black in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Here’s a story to check out:
Toronto’s city council recently approved a five-year, multi-million dollar Black food sovereignty plan, which is the first of its kind in North America. It aims to address food insecurity in the Black community through a justice instead of charity lens.
Our very own Alex Nguyen actually covered this issue for Ricochet, detailing the push for this new plan as it swung into action a year and a half ago.
Finally: If you somehow missed the story everyone on the Internet is talking about right now, here it is. Please, please email me your thoughts. I will be thinking about this piece for the next week straight either way.