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Home World Facebook Whistleblower Reveals Identity, Says Firm Chooses "Profit Over Safety" Advertisement

Facebook Whistleblower Reveals Identity, Says

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Firm Chooses "Profit Over Safety"

Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, has worked for companies including Google
and Pinterest.
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World Agence France-Presse Updated: October 04, 2021 7:31 am IST

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Facebook knew its products were fueling hate, the whistleblower said. (File) Hotstar Subscription Offers Amazon Sale
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accused the company of choosing "profit over safety."

Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, has worked for
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she had seen before.

DIWALI SPECIAL She called for the company to be regulated. "Facebook over and over again has
shown it chooses profit over safety. It is subsidizing, it is paying for its profits with
our safety," Haugen said.

"The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and
causing ethnic violence around the world," she said.
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In the 60 Minutes interview she explained how the algorithm, which picks what to
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"Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will
spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money."

During the 2020 US presidential election, she said, the company realized the
danger that such content presented and turned on safety systems to reduce it.
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But "as soon as the election was over they turn them back off, or they change the

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settings back to what they were before, to prioritize growth over safety, and that
really feels like a betrayal of democracy to me," she said.

"No one at Facebook is malevolent," she said, adding that the incentives are
"misaligned."

"Facebook makes more money when you consume more content ... And the more
anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact, the more they consume."

Haugen did not draw a straight line between that decision to roll back safety
systems and US Capitol riot on January 6, though 60 Minutes noted that the social
network was used by some of the organizers of that violence.

'Ludicrous'

Earlier Sunday, Facebook dismissed as "ludicrous" suggestions it contributed to

the January 6 riot.

Facebook's vice president of policy and global affairs Nick Clegg also vehemently
pushed back at the assertion its platforms are "toxic" for teens, days after a tense
congressional hearing in which US lawmakers grilled the company over its impact
on the mental health of young users.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Clegg sought to pre-empt Haugen's
interview by penning a 1,500-word memo to staff alerting them of the
"misleading" accusations.

Clegg pressed the case in an appearance on CNN.

"I think the assertion (that) January 6th can be explained because of social media,
I just think that's ludicrous," Clegg told the broadcaster, saying it was "false
comfort" to believe technology was driving America's deepening political
polarization.

The responsibility for the insurrection "lies squarely with the people who inflicted
the violence and those who encouraged them -- including then-president Trump"
and others who asserted the election was stolen, he added.

Polarization

While everyone "has a rogue uncle" or old classmate whose extreme views may
be visible on Facebook, Clegg reportedly wrote in his memo, "changes to
algorithmic ranking systems on one social media platform cannot explain wider
societal polarization."

Facebook has encountered criticism that it fuels societal problems, attacks Clegg
said should not rest at Facebook's feet. But he acknowledged that people with
pre-existing issues may not benefit from social media use.

"I don't think it's intuitively surprising if you're not feeling great about yourself
already, that then going on to social media can actually make you feel a bit worse,"
he told CNN.

He also disputed reporting in an explosive Wall Street Journal series that

Facebook's own research warned of the harm that photo-sharing app Instagram
can do to teen girls' well-being.

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"It's simply not borne out by our research or anybody else's that Instagram is bad
or toxic for all teens," Clegg said, but added Facebook's research will continue.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated
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from a syndicated feed.)

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