Whistleblower Rips Zuckerberg, 'Moral Bankruptcy' at Facebook
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen didn't agree back during Tuesday testimony earlier the Senate Commerce Committee, during which she argued that Facebook has shirked its responsibility to the social network's nigh vulnerable users, in large part because profit is king.
Reaction from panel members on both sides of the aisle suggests that Facebook may accept some regulatory headaches in its time to come.
Facebook is focused on growth to the detriment of projects that could make the social network a safer space for teens, marginalized communities, and those at risk of falling casualty to dangerous misinformation, co-ordinate to Haugen, who worked equally a production manager at Facebook until earlier this year.
"Regularly, integrity projects...that were hard-fought past the teams trying to go on us safe are undone by new growth projects," she said. "Facebook needs to take responsibility for the consequences of its choices. It needs to be willing to have pocket-sized trade-offs on profit."
Otherwise, Facebook will remain in a fell cycle in which it understaffs necessary projects, "which causes scandals, which and so makes it harder to hire," Haugen said. If it wants to ready its issues and attract the people who tin can make it happen, Facebook must "acknowledge the truth" and declare "moral bankruptcy."
The Buck Stops With Mark
And by Facebook, Haugen means CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"Marker holds a very unique role in the tech industry in that he holds over 55% of all the voting shares for Facebook," Haugen noted. "There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled, and in the end, the buck stops with Marker. There's no one currently property Mark answerable simply himself."
Haugen argued that Zuckerberg "built an organization that is very metrics-driven, [so] metrics make the decision. Unfortunately, that itself is a conclusion. And in the end, if he is the CEO and the chairman of Facebook, he is responsible for those decisions."
Facebook Global Head of Safety Managing director Antigone Davis appeared before the same commission last week, during which she argued that the information Haugen took from Facebook and provided to the Wall Street Journal and regulators was "not a bombshell," something senators establish surprising. Today, Sen. Richard Blumenthal—Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security—said it was time Zuckerberg himself appeared earlier Congress to explicate "what you are doing and why you lot did it."
In a argument, Lena Pietsch, manager of policy communications at Facebook, downplayed Haugen's contributions to the company.
"Today, a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives – and testified more than half dozen times to not working on the subject matter in question. Nosotros don't concord with her characterization of the many issues she testified about."
That terminal chip is a reference to questions from senators who quizzed Haugen on topics she did not piece of work on at the social network, which she best-selling during the hearing. That includes information retention, money earned per user, and issues concerning children and teen mental health.
Over to You, Congress
"Despite all this, nosotros hold on one thing; it'due south fourth dimension to begin to create standard rules for the internet," Facebook's Pietsch added. "It's been 25 years since the rules for the internet have been updated, and instead of expecting the industry to make societal decisions that vest to legislators, information technology is fourth dimension for Congress to act."
In her prepared testimony, Haugen pushed Congress to "break out of previous regulatory frames. Tweaks to outdated privacy protections or changes to Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act] will non be sufficient.
"The cadre of the issue is that no one can understand Facebook'southward destructive choices better than Facebook, because only Facebook gets to look under the hood," Haugen said. "A critical starting point for effective regulation is transparency: full access to data for research not directed by Facebook. On this foundation, we tin can build sensible rules and standards to address consumer harms, illegal content, data protection, anticompetitive practices, algorithmic systems, and more than."
Commission members appeared willing to try. "Allow'south go to work," said Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. "I think the time has come for action, and I think you [Haugen] are the catalyst for that activeness," added Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, who blamed inaction up until this point, in part, on lobbyists.
Nigh Chloe Albanesius
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/social-media/46394/whistleblower-rips-zuckerberg-moral-bankruptcy-at-facebook
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