Former Facebook product manager, Frances Haugen, put forward her comments on Facebook’s policies and recommended social regulators to safeguard people from being harmed in front of the US Congress.
After a recent six hours, prolonged outage suffered by Facebook and its family apps, Whatsapp and Instagram, the social media giant faces another crisis of allegations.
The blackout occurs when the company is struggling with the repercussions of a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal based on several documents provided by the whistleblower, Frances Haugen.
Who is Frances Haugen?
Haugen (37-year-old), an engineer with a brilliant record working as a product manager at various supreme tech firms such as Google, Pinterest and Yelp, worked for Facebook for two years.
She was responsible for checking the spread of misinformation on the platform and ensuring that democracy was not destabilized.
Her LinkedIn profile suggests that she is also the founder of Hinge’s well-known dating application, formerly known as Secret Agent Cupid.
She has a deep passion for fighting the spread of misinformation on social media and has personally witnessed one of her close ones lose herself to fake news on these platforms.
While joining Facebook, she made sure to land a position in the company’s civic integrity team, which looked at election intervention all over the world. However, the team got dismissed after the US presidential election in 2020.
Haugen’s views and comments
In her ’60 minutes’ interview with Scott Pelley, Haugen admits that she lost faith in Facebook after her team got disbanded.
Haugen said although the social media giant distributed the work among various other departments, it did not combat the misinformation spread.
She accused Facebook of having faked its progress when it comes to the spread of hate speech and might have as well influenced the Capitol riot of January 6, after the company turned off its safety systems following the presidential elections.
Frances filed several reports against Facebook alleging that the company was not disclosing its shortcomings to investors and the public.
After that, she revealed many internal documents to The Wall Street Journals that reported that Facebook aggravates the spread of negative information that significantly harms teenage girls.
Haugen stated that she does not hate Facebook and is only trying to improve it despite her comments and views.
The hearing of Facebook
At the Congressional hearing, the former product manager alleged that Facebook suffered “moral bankruptcy” and essentially became a money-making company that does not care about misinformation causing people and democracy.
Facebook algorithm raises the most exciting news, irrespective of positive and negative impact, to the top of users’ news feed.
This method indeed engages users’ and helps Facebook earn money, and contributes to the propagation of conspiracy theories and fake information that instigate eating disorders among teenagers.
To support her argument, she stated two examples as well. Firstly, the video that activists posted on Facebook followed Senator Krysten Sinema into her bathroom stall.
The activists proudly showcased how they were smothering and pressurizing the Senator to vote according to their wish.
Secondly, Instagram, owned by Facebook, “triggers” unhealthy body image issues and makes impressionable young girls feel worse about themselves.
What should be done?
Haugen suggested that Facebook should have more regulations and raise the minimum age to join the platforms to 17-years-old instead of 13-years-old. The lawmakers, in particular, discussed four specific changes.
Firstly, Facebook could be ordered to stop or significantly reduce engagement-based algorithms.
Algorithms would still be in charge of reducing spam, but time and people, and not machines, would be curators of what people see.
Posts will be in chronological order, just like they used to be. Secondly, Facebook should spend more on content moderation.
What people see and can access on these platforms should be manually spotted and restricted.
Thirdly, an agency should be developed to assess Facebook’s algorithms and features. Lastly, Facebook should responsibly share regular documents on what is happening on its sites,
With required protection, such as what posts are more shared and what politics-oriented ads are being clicked on.
However, no matter what changes Facebook undergoes, some regulations could be implemented at the base level.
At home, it is the Parents, and in schools, the teachers are already downsizing screen time for their children.
Adults, too, can benefit from a managed schedule and cut their screen time effectively. This easy restriction can get people away from the blue light of screens and help everyone sleep better at night.
