On Oct. 5, Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistle-blower, came forward with thousands of incriminating documents showing how Facebook has known the dangerous content that its apps contain. Haugen testified in front of Congress on the effects that social media has on teenagers and how the app weakens America’s democracy.
Previously a product manager at Facebook for two years, Haugen has worked on algorithm systems that help recommend news and content to users. She believes that Facebook has the potential to “bring out the best in us.” However, she has had enough of the company’s incapability to address the problem that its social media apps hold. Haugen states in her testimony “the company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.” Facebook has an incredible influence on what information users come into contact with.
She claims how she has encountered on multiple occasions how the company chooses to push extreme and harmful messages to users because they can profit off of these messages.
Fighting for transparency, Haugen asks congress to demand Facebook to publish the thousands of private research the company has conducted on its social media apps. With Facebook’s secrets continuing to stay in the dark, it is impossible to fix the problems the social media apps possess. She claims, “This inability to see into Facebook’s actual systems and confirm that they work as communicated is like the Department of Transportation regulating cars by only watching them drive down the highway.” Facebook’s data must be published for social media reform to be made.
On top of harming America’s democracy by pushing harmful messages on its apps, Facebook has also collected studies on how its apps negatively affect teenagers, especially teenage girls. In one of the documents that Haugen brought forward, a particular study conducted over three years was revealed. Results from the study show how the mental health and body image of teenagers has declined due to social media usage. Especially Instagram, social media apps harbor extremely toxic environments. Influencers and social media personalities upload tremendously polished pictures of themselves, thanks to the help of Photoshop and many filters. Creating an “aesthetic” life with a “perfect” body on social media can lead to teenagers believing users to be authentic when they aren’t. Believing in this false reality, teenagers are the demographic that is the most targeted. Feelings of inadequacy can arise from looking at picture-perfect bodies which can lead to eating disorders.
In one experiment, Senator Richard Blumenthal created an Instagram account and posed as a 13-year-old girl. With this fake Instagram account, Mr. Blumenthal followed a couple of accounts that advertised dieting. After some time, Instagram began to promote harmful accounts that encouraged extreme dieting and eating disorders. This is yet another example of how Facebook’s algorithm works to promote incredibly harmful messages on their social media platforms.
Towards the end of her statement, Haugen states how it is definite that terrorist-based leaders are using Facebook and how the company is aware of it, yet doing nothing. She claims how the company has understaffed security teams and how she has “strong national security concerns about how Facebook operates today.” With national security being at stake, this gives congress an even bigger incentive to act and demand Facebook to release all of their internal research.
After Haugen’s statement, lawmakers have agreed to create legislation to make social media a safer environment. As Haugen states, “Congress can change the rules that Facebook plays by and stop the many harms it is now causing.” It is time to hold Facebook accountable for the knowledge they have suppressed from the public, and time to create change in the virtual world.
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