If Facebook change to be Safer, people will spend less Time on the site, click on less Ads, and they make less Money
Facebook, the world's largest social media platform, faces accusations it is harming teen girls' self image and fueling America's deepening political polarization.
In recent years, Facebook and its social media counterparts have come under intense scrutiny for how they operate and the personal data they hold on their users, many of whom are teenagers.
Teen girls in particular have been scrutinized, amid allegations they face an onslaught of abuse, particularly on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
The allegations are not new. Before Facebook launched Instagram in 2010, it faced allegations the service allowed sexual predators to exploit young women on its platform.
In 2016, a New York teen was killed after taking her own life after an Instagram photo of her lying in bed at home went viral, sparking a national debate about the culture of sexting on social media. In 2018, the company also came under fire over allegations that Russian agents had used the platform to manipulate the 2016 U.S. election.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is 27, told congressional lawmakers at a Senate hearing in April that the company was working to protect young users
The whistleblower who leaked a trove of Facebook papers saying the social media giant knew its products were inciting hatred and hurting children's mental health revealed her name in a television interview on Sunday, accusing the corporation of prioritizing "business before safety."
Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, has worked for businesses like as Google and Pinterest, but she told CBS's "60 Minutes" that Facebook was "significantly worse" than anything she had seen previously.
She demanded that the corporation be controlled. "Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated that it prioritizes business before safety. It subsidizes, and it pays for its profits with our safety "Haugen stated.
"The current form of Facebook is ripping our communities apart and generating ethnic conflict all over the world," she added.
The world's largest social media network has been caught in a maelstrom sparked by Haugen, who shared papers with US legislators and The Wall Street Journal as an unidentified whistleblower detailing how Facebook knew its products, notably Instagram, were affecting young girls.
In the 60 Minutes interview, she described how the algorithm that determines what appears in a user's News Feed is designed for material that elicits a response.
According to Haugen's studies, it is "easier to inspire people to fury than it is to inspire them to other emotions."
"Facebook has learned that changing the algorithm to make it safer will result in users spending less time on the site, clicking on fewer advertisements, and making less money."
She claims that during the 2020 US presidential election, the firm recognized the risk that such information posed and activated safety measures to mitigate it.
But "as soon as the election was over, they turned them back off, or they changed the settings back to what they were before, to emphasize development over safety," she claimed.
"There is no malice at Facebook," she added, adding that the incentives are "misaligned."
"When you consume more material on Facebook, it earns more money... And the more they are exposed to rage, the more they interact, and the more they consume."
Haugen did not draw a direct relationship between the decision to pull back safety mechanisms and the January 6 incident at the US Capitol, however 60 Minutes reported that some of the organizers of the violence utilized the social network.
- 'Ludicrous' -
Earlier on Sunday, Facebook denied as "ludicrous" claims that it was involved in the January 6 violence.
Facebook's vice president of policy and global affairs, Nick Clegg, also fiercely denied that its platforms are "poison" for adolescents, only days after a heated congressional session in which US legislators questioned the firm on its influence on young users' mental health.
According to the New York Times, Clegg attempted to pre-empt Haugen's interview by writing a 1,500-word email to employees informing them of the "misleading" charges.
In an appearance on CNN, Clegg pushed the argument.
"I think the notion (that) January 6th can be explained by social media is ridiculous," Clegg told the BBC, calling it "false comfort" to assume technology is driving America's increasing political divide.
While everyone "has a rogue uncle" or an old classmate whose extremist views are evident on Facebook, Clegg allegedly said in his email that "changes to algorithmic ranking algorithms on one social media site cannot explain broader societal division."
Facebook has been accused of fueling societal issues, which Clegg says should not be blamed on the company. However, he admitted that those with pre-existing problems could not gain from social media use.
"I don't think it's intuitively unexpected that if you're not feeling great about yourself, going on social media might really make you feel a little worse," he told CNN.
He also denied reports in an explosive Wall Street Journal series that Facebook's own research warned of the harm that photo-sharing app Instagram may cause to the well-being of young girls.
"It's simply not supported by our or anybody else's study that Instagram is terrible or poisonous for all teenagers," Clegg said, adding that Facebook's research will continue.
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SOURCE: 60 Minutes
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