Analysis: Why whistleblower Frances Haugen is Facebook’s worst nightmare
Facebook’s products “harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy” and put profit over moral responsibility, she told lawmakers. Although Haugen was highly critical of Facebook, she was constructive and even hopeful.
“These problems are solvable. A safer, free speech-respecting, more enjoyable social media is possible,” Haugen said. “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.”
‘A twenty-first century American hero’
“You are a twenty-first century American hero,” Senator Ed Markey told her. “Our nation owes you a huge debt of gratitude for the courage you’re showing here today.”
Haugen made specific recommendations for how Facebook might alter its platforms — or how regulators might create laws to force it to do so — including moving away from algorithms that rank content based on engagement and popularity-based measures such as likes and comments from Instagram.
It was refreshing to veer away from the usual grandstanding that comes from more adversarial Facebook-related hearings, which usually devolve into debates over censorship, bias and misinformation. Rather than focus on conflict over how Facebook should handle different types of content, Haugen drilled down on the algorithms that surface that content and how they work.
Facebook on edge
Facebook made repeated attempts to discredit Haugen before, during and after her testimony.
Haugen herself repeatedly acknowledged during her testimony that she did not work directly on child safety issues, and instead only cited information she learned from Facebook’s own internal research documents, which she said were “freely available to anyone in the company.” Haugen also admitted when questions were outside of her scope of knowledge and declined to answer them.
Facebook’s early efforts to snub Haugen did not impress those inside the hearing. Senator Marsha Blackburn called out Stone’s tweet during the hearing, saying, “If Facebook wants to discuss their targeting of children, if they want to discuss their practices, privacy violations, or violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, I am extending to you an invitation to step forward, be sworn in, and testify before this committee.”
A whistleblower who wants to fix Facebook
In a call with reporters following the hearing, subcommittee Chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he found Haugen’s remarks “compelling” and “credible.”
“Frances Haugen wants to fix Facebook, not burn it to the ground,” Blumenthal said.
Indeed, that may be one of Haugen’s biggest assets as a reliable witness — she repeatedly told lawmakers that she was there because she believes in Facebook’s potential for good, if the company is able to address its serious issues. Haugen even said she would work for Facebook again, if given the chance. She also said she is against breaking up Facebook, instead emphasizing collaborative solutions with Congress, or else “these systems are going to continue to exist and be dangerous even if broken up.”
Haugen suggested that Congress give Facebook the chance to “declare moral bankruptcy and we can figure out how to fix these things together.” Asked to clarify what she meant by “moral bankruptcy,” Haugen said she envisioned a process like financial bankruptcy where there is a “mechanism” to “forgive them” and “move forward.”
“Facebook is stuck in a feedback loop that they cannot get out of. …They need to admit that they did something wrong and that they need help to solve these problems. And that’s what moral bankruptcy is,” she said.
This likely won’t be Haugen’s last time testifying before Congress. During the hearing, she said her time working on counterespionage issues at Facebook gave her “strong national security concerns about how Facebook operates today.”
Blumenthal suggested that these national security concerns could be the subject of a future subcommittee hearing.