Integrity Score 2097
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Facebook has hardly finished firefighting the fallout of whistleblower France Haugen’s revelations that the company didn’t prioritise the public despite warning from internal studies, and her testimony before the US Congress was splashed across the world. The tech giant has to now firefight again with a new whistleblower saying that it knowingly hosted hate speech and potentially illegal activity.
According to the whistleblower, Facebook refused to enforce safety rules for fear of angering the followers of Donald Trump, and it may have led to January 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill. According to the Internal documents leaked, despite the company saying that it did enough to stop the conspiracy theorists during and after the elections, most of them Donald Trump followers, reveal that Facebook should have done a lot more and it didn’t. For instance, the documents show that the Stop the Steal movement used the platform with few consequences. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/facebook-whistleblower-hate-speech-illegal-report)
The NBC, for instance, has reported that internal documents say that researchers within Facebook found the platform recommending users who were considered fans of Donald Trump to the pages promoting fake news and conspiracy theories. But the warnings were ignored.
The latest whistleblower has made allegations to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees publicly traded companies. The Washington Post says that the whistleblower is a former member of Facebook’s Integrity team. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/22/facebook-new-whistleblower-complaint/)
The testimony by Haugen has led to many senators saying that they will think hard about changing the laws for social media companies like Facebook and the latest revelation could only hasten that process.
Besides the privacy laws, Congress may push for amending Section 230, the internet law that protects tech companies from for considered that could be considered illegal from their users.
(https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043377310/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-congress) Some even drew parallels with the tobacco hearings decades ago that led to strong action against the industry. “Facebook is like big tobacco, enticing young kids with that first cigarette,” said Senator Ed Markey. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/05/facebook-whistleblower-hearing-key-takeaways-france-haugen)
Read more:
New whistleblowers means new trouble for Facebook:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/business/january-6-insurrection-facebook-papers/index.html
Will the whistleblowers change anything?
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-whistleblower-wont-change-anything/