WASHINGTON: A former Facebook data scientist told Congress on Tuesday that the social network giant鈥檚 products harm children and fuel polarization in the US while its executives refuse to change because they elevate profits over safety. And she laid responsibility with the company鈥檚 CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Frances Haugen testified to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. Speaking confidently at a charged hearing, she accused the company of being aware of apparent harm to some teens from Instagram and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.
鈥淔acebook鈥檚 products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,鈥� Haugen said. 鈥淭he company鈥檚 leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won鈥檛 make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.鈥�
鈥淐ongressional action is needed,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey won鈥檛 solve this crisis without your help.鈥�
Haugen said the company has acknowledged publicly that integrity controls were crucially needed for its systems that stoke the engagement of users, but then it disabled some of those controls.
In dialogue with receptive senators of both parties, Haugen, who focused on algorithm products in her work at Facebook, explained the importance to the company of algorithms that govern what shows up on users鈥� news feeds. She said a 2018 change to the content flow contributed to more divisiveness and ill will in a network ostensibly created to bring people closer together.
Despite the enmity that the new algorithms were feeding, she said Facebook found that they helped keep people coming back 鈥� a pattern that helped the social media giant sell more of the digital ads that generate most of its revenue.
Senators agreed.
鈥淚t has profited off spreading misinformation and disinformation and sowing hate,鈥� said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, the panel鈥檚 chairman. 鈥淔acebook鈥檚 answers to Facebook鈥檚 destructive impact always seems to be more Facebook, we need more Facebook 鈥� which means more pain, and more money for Facebook.鈥�
Haugen said she believed Facebook didn鈥檛 set out to build a destructive platform. But 鈥渋n the end, the buck stops with Mark,鈥� she said referring to Zuckerberg, who controls more than 50 percent of Facebook鈥檚 voting shares. 鈥淭here is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself.鈥�
Haugen said she believed that Zuckerberg was familiar with some of the internal research showing concerns for potential negative impacts of Instagram.
The government needs to step in with stricter oversight of the company, Haugen said.
Like fellow tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple, Facebook has enjoyed minimal regulation. A number of bipartisan legislative proposals for the tech industry address data privacy, protection of young people and anti-competitive conduct. But getting new laws through Congress is a heavy slog. The Federal Trade Commission has adopted a stricter stance recently toward Facebook and other companies.
The subcommittee is examining Facebook鈥檚 use of information from its own researchers on Instagram that could indicate potential harm for some of its young users, especially girls, while it publicly downplayed the negative impacts. For some of the teens devoted to Facebook鈥檚 popular photo-sharing platform, the peer pressure generated by the visually focused Instagram led to mental health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, the research leaked by Haugen showed.
One internal study cited 13.5 percent of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17 percent of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
Because of the drive for user engagement, Haugen testified, 鈥淔acebook knows that they are leading young users to anorexia content. ... It鈥檚 just like cigarettes. Teenagers don鈥檛 have any self-regulation. We need to protect the kids.鈥�
Haugen has come forward with a wide-ranging condemnation of Facebook, buttressed with tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company鈥檚 civic integrity unit. She also has filed complaints with federal authorities alleging that Facebook鈥檚 own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest, but the company hides what it knows.
鈥淭he company intentionally hides vital information from the public, from the US government and from governments around the world,鈥� Haugen said. 鈥淭he documents I have provided to Congress prove that Facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children, the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages.鈥�
The former employee challenging the social network giant with 2.8 billion users worldwide and nearly $1 trillion in market value is a 37-year-old data expert from Iowa with a degree in computer engineering and a master鈥檚 degree in business from Harvard. Prior to being recruited by Facebook in 2019, she worked for 15 years at tech companies including Google, Pinterest and Yelp.
After recent reports in The Wall Street Journal based on documents she leaked to the newspaper raised a public outcry, Haugen revealed her identity in a CBS 鈥�60 Minutes鈥� interview aired Sunday night.
As the public relations debacle over the Instagram research grew last week, Facebook put on hold its work on a kids鈥� version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12.
Haugen said that Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and incitement to violence after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol.
After the November election, Facebook dissolved the civic integrity unit where Haugen had been working. That, she says, was the moment she realized 鈥淚 don鈥檛 trust that they鈥檙e willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.鈥�
Haugen says she told Facebook executives when they recruited her that she wanted to work in an area of the company that fights misinformation, because she had lost a friend to online conspiracy theories.
Facebook maintains that Haugen鈥檚 allegations are misleading and insists there is no evidence to support the premise that it is the primary cause of social polarization.
鈥淓ven with the most sophisticated technology, which I believe we deploy, even with the tens of thousands of people that we employ to try and maintain safety and integrity on our platform, we鈥檙e never going to be absolutely on top of this 100 percent of the time,鈥� Nick Clegg, Facebook鈥檚 vice president of policy and public affairs, said Sunday on CNN鈥檚 鈥淩eliable Sources.鈥�
That鈥檚 because of the 鈥渋nstantaneous and spontaneous form of communication鈥� on Facebook, Clegg said, adding, 鈥淚 think we do more than any reasonable person can expect to.鈥�