Story at a glance
- A Facebook whistleblower testified before Congress on Tuesday on the company’s lack of accountability.
- Frances Haugen, 37, spoke to “60 Minutes” on Sunday about what led her to quit her job at Facebook after 15 years in May.
- Zuckerberg countered Haugen’s testimony in an open letter to his employees.
Mark Zuckerberg responded to testimony a Facebook whistleblower gave to Congress on Tuesday.
“We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health. It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees. “At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.”
Whistleblower Frances Haugen, 37, left Facebook in May after 15 years with the company, taking thousands of internal documents she copied from the company that she says shows Facebook’s inaction on, and sometimes promoting of, misinformation such as that surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Haugen testified to Congress about the lack of accountability at the company.
“There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled [as Facebook],” Haugen testified. “The buck stops with Mark. There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself.”
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“If we didn’t care about fighting harmful content, then why would we employ so many more people dedicated to this than any other company in our space — even ones larger than us?” Zuckerberg countered in his letter. “If we wanted to hide our results, why would we have established an industry-leading standard for transparency and reporting on what we’re doing?”
However, in an interview with “60 Minutes” on Sunday prior to her testimony, Haugen said there were “systemic” problems with the social media’s algorithms and Facebook’s willingness to allow “angry content” and misinformation to spread and be promoted for its own gain.
“Facebook’s mission is to connect people all around the world,” said Haugen. “When you have a system that you know can be hacked with anger, it’s easier to provoke people into anger. And publishers are saying, ‘Oh, if I do more angry, polarizing, divisive content, I get more money.’ Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart.”
“Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer,” she added, “people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money.”
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