Facebook Whistleblower Says Site’s Products ‘Harm Children, Stoke Division, Weaken Our Democracy’ in Stunning Opening Testimony to Congress
Screenshot via CBS.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s opening statement to Congress Tuesday offers a bleak account of the ‘crisis’ that Facebook has created and continues to perpetuate.
This comes after Haugen finally revealed her identity to the public on 60 Minutes, where she opened up to CBS’ Scott Pelley about her experience working for Facebook since 2019.
Alongside the bombshell interview, the testimony takes place not even 24 hours after Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, all crashed on Monday. The outage began at 11:44 a.m. Eastern and started to come back in the 5 and 6 p.m. Eastern hours. It is still unclear, at least to the general public, what exactly caused the outages.
In the opening statements of her testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Haugen pleads with the U.S. government for congressional action, claiming that Facebook “cannot solve this crisis without your help.”
After thanking Congress for their “interest in confronting one of the most urgent threats to the American people,” Haugen invoked her personal experience working at Facebook, in order to highlight her concern that “Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, weaken our democracy, and much more.”
“Let’s be clear: it doesn’t have to be this way,” stated Haugen. “We are here today because of deliberate choices Facebook has made.”
She continued to highlight that “Facebook repeatedly encountered conflicts between its own profits and our safety.” Haugen recalls that in her experience, “Facebook constantly resolved those conflicts in favor of its own profits.”
“Their profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate,” alleges Haugen, specifically referencing the population of adolescent girls, who are increasingly vulnerable to such problems on social media platforms.
“Facebook became a $1 trillion company by paying for its profits with out safety, including the safety of our children. And that is unacceptable,” declares Haugen with passion.
The Facebook whistleblower made a call for transparency, saying that the “frightening truth” is “almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook.”
“As long as Facebook is operating in the dark, it is accountable to no one,” Haugen explained, “And it will continue to make choices that go against the common good. Our common good.”
“We have to just trust what Facebook says is true — and they have repeatedly proved that they do not deserve our blind faith.”
In her concluding argument, Haugen said, “These problems are solvable. A safer, more enjoyable social media is possible,” with the help of congressional regulation.
“I came forward, at great personal risk, because I believe we still have time to act. But we must act now.”
