With her revelations on Facebook, whistleblower Frances Haugen sparked a debate about the US company’s social responsibility last year. Now she spoke again to her former employer.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen spoke again about her former employer at the SXSW media fair. “Facebook has known for a long time that its decisions to maximize profits hurt people,” affirmed the former employee of the US company. “That children hurt themselves, they contribute to suicides, it fuels ethnic conflicts in the world.” For them it is clear: “Facebook has blood on its hands.”
In September last year, Haugen initially anonymously leaked internal documents to the international daily newspaper The Wall Street Journal, which prove the manipulative use and the negative effects of Facebook on its users. At the beginning of October, she revealed herself for the first time and again raised serious allegations against the Facebook parent company Meta. The documents she published showed that Facebook had repeatedly put “growth over security,” Haugen said at the time.
Haugen: Facebook too present in non-Western countries
Now she has once again criticized the company’s procedures. Facebook is omnipresent in non-Western countries. According to Haugen, many people in countries outside of the US and Europe use social networks almost exclusively on the Internet. She warned: “When we talk about misinformation in the US and Europe, we have to realize that we still have a choice – millions of others don’t have that choice.”
Haugen also suggested asking users to read articles before sharing them. In addition, it is essential that more people are used instead of algorithms to filter the site for false reports and problematic content.
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