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FACEBOOK CEO MARK Zuckerberg has said claims that his company puts profits over safety is “just not true.”
His comments came after a whistleblower Frances Haugen, told US politicians yesterday that the social media giant fuels division, harms children and needs to be regulated.
“The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical,” Zuckerberg wrote in a note to Facebook employees that he then posted on his account, hours after a whistleblower testified before US lawmakers.
“I don’t know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed. The moral, business and product incentives all point in the opposite direction.”
Frances Haugen was giving evidence to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, after accusing the company of being aware of apparent harm to some teenagers from Instagram and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.
Haugen has come forward with a wide-ranging condemnation of Facebook, with tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company’s civic integrity unit.
She has also filed complaints with federal authorities alleging that Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest, but the company hides what it knows.
Haugen says she is speaking out because of her belief that “Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy”.
“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,” she said in written evidence prepared for the hearing.
After recent reports based on documents she leaked to Wall Street Journal raised a public outcry, Haugen revealed her identity in a TV interview aired on Sunday night. She said: “Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.”
The ex-employee challenging the social network with 2.8 billion users worldwide and nearly a trillion dollars in market value is a 37-year-old data expert with a degree in computer engineering and a master’s degree in business from Harvard.
Before being recruited by Facebook in 2019, she worked for 15 years at tech companies including Google, Pinterest and Yelp.
“I believe that Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” Haugen told a Senate panel.
“Congressional action is needed. They won’t solve this crisis without your help,” she added.
In her testimony, she emphasized the power held by a service that is tightly woven into the daily lives of billions of users.
She also noted the risks that the social media giant’s platforms are fueling a contagion of eating disorders, body-shaming and self-dissatisfaction that is particularly dangerous for young people.
“There are going to be women walking around this planet in 60 years with brittle bones because of the choices that Facebook made around emphasizing profit today,” she said, referring to the impact of eating disorders.
With reporting from Niall O’Connor.
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And yet does anyone else find it strange that the only way you can comment on the Journal is through a Facebook or Twitter account?
@Mark Malone: Complicit they are
@Anarch Eco: therefore you’re complicit, no?
@: I only spread word of the reality of the human predicament.
@Anarch Eco: but you’re doing so via a social media account on the journal
@: the article is about facebook, not its users
@Mark Malone: previously they did allow a login mail address. However integrated login is more of a norm now so companies like the comments section in the journal can just accept FB or Twitter data without having to validate and store much data itself. But it was interesting to see the comments when FB was down as they were all Twitter accounts
And yet anyone who had ever used FB instinctively knows that he’s lying
Well his hardly going to admit something like that.of course it’s for profits.every fourth post on Facebook is advertising which is creating massive profits for him
Look at his eyes and then try tell me he’s in any way human. He stole the idea for Facebook, even in the movie where it painted him out to be a hero, they couldn’t hide the fact that he stole it.
@Rob Gale: if he’s not human, what is he? An otter?
@: possibly but I think he’s more akin to a weasel
Zuckerberg: “I’m a decent guy”
Spoken like a politician
Some of my USA cousins are lost down its rabbit holes. Dreadful place that I snoop in on the cousins but never post.
@Insider at RTE: what are you rabbiting on about
@Hugh Morris: Down? Rabbit holes? He’s obviously making a Warrenpoint…
The single biggest issue to ever hit democracy from a tech / media perspective in Ireland isn’t Facebook, Twitter etc facilitating the dissemination of false information. It happened when The Journal removed the dislike button from the comment section. Bring back the dislike button and let people have our voting freedoms back. I’m damn certain this post alone would get at least 1,000 dislikes. And I’d be proud to call each one my own.
Zuckerberg doesn’t have a Facebook account himself. “I don’t want people knowing all my business” … says it all
Complicit they are
Yet the documented evidence from his own company says different to what he says…
Of course Mark we all believe you.
In fairness to MZ, he practices what he preaches. He is spreading disinformation about his products, totally in line with many of his customers. The facts, of even his own research, are an inconvenience and addressing the accusations directly, instead of denigrating his accuser, will fill in the hole he has dug. Jan 6th will always be remembered, let’s not forget Oct 6th. The saddest thing is that if he did take care of his product, it could be a power for good. In regard to Ms Haugen. What a Woman!!!!!!! Certainly beats Kim K when it comes to Role models
I really don’t see the problem here. A private company tries to make profits off its customers. It’s comparable to accuse drug dealers choosing profit over their customer wellbeing! Really don’t get it.
He can’t deny that they put profit before education though. There’s been a marketplace tab on Facebook for ages now. Yet there’s not one single feature focused on any kind of education. They have a billion members and never thought that it might be worthwhile to add some kind of education resources??… Facebook is an absolute sewer, and they have no interest in making it any more than that.
Sky blue says star witness
I believe Mork when he says he’s a human looking to make the connected world better.
*Mark
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