Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared before the British government on Monday to provide testimony about the platform, as they consider new rules to impose on big social media networks.
Haugen testified to MPs and peers scrutinizing the online safety bill, which is a piece of legislation that will place a duty of care on social media companies to protect users.
The whistleblower has put Facebook in the hot seat after she released tens of thousands of internal documents that detail how the company has failed to keep its users safe from harmful content, whether it’s content affecting their mental wellbeing, or content encouraging hate speech or conspiracy theories.
Speaking to the Online Safety Bill committee, Haugen said Facebook is “unquestionably making hate worse,” and that Instagram was more dangerous than other forms of social media. She said Facebook has been unwilling to sacrifice even small amounts of profit for public safety.
The draft online safety bill came into focus last week after the murder of Conservative MP David Amess, who was stabbed to death at his constituency surgery. The murder is being treated as terrorism and extremism.
Leaders called for criminal sanctions for bosses of digital platforms that fail to crack down on extremism, including calls from Keir Starmer, who is the leader of the Labour party. This prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to promise tough sentences for anyone who is responsible for allowing extremist content.
However, his government later tried to step back from Johnson’s aggressive language. The government is holding in reserve an option of introducing criminal sanctions for company executives who do not cooperate with Ofcom, which is the communications regulator in the UK, responsible for protecting the British public from hate speech and other bad content, including extremism.
The proposed law would subject social media networks to checks by Ofcom, in addition to new duties on them.
Haugen told US senators earlier in October that Facebook greatly prioritizes profits over public health and safety. This was in the aftermath of her first set of leaked internal reports, which showed Facebook knew that its platform Instagram is incredibly damaging to teenagers’ mental health.
The latest leaked reports to a group of US news outlets showed that this was just the beginning of what Facebook is either unable or unwilling to contain.
Reports showed the company struggled to combat rightwing misinformation and conspiracy theories, which led to “stop the steal” beliefs and the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.
Be the first to comment