Business

Facebook’s whistleblower is testifying before Congress – here are the most important moments so far

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen arrives at Senate hearing
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, arrives to testify on Tuesday, October 5, 2021.

  • Former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen will testify before Congress Tuesday.
  • The hearing comes after she leaked internal documents showing the company’s controversial practices.
  • She’s expected to testify that Facebook prioritized profits over stopping extremism and division.
  • See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is testifying before Congress Tuesday after leaking internal documents showing the tech giant’s controversial business practices.

Haugen shared the documents with the Wall Street Journal that in part showed Facebook knew Instagram negatively impacted the mental health of its young users, especially teenage girls. It also showed employees were worried that a 2018 algorithm change further promoted sensationalistic and divisive content to users.

Facebook consistently resolves conflicts “in favor of its own profits,” Haugen said in her opening remarks. “The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat.”

You can watch the hearing on the US Senate’s website here.

Haugen referenced Monday’s sweeping Facebook outage

In her opening remarks, Haugen said she doesn’t know why the services went down. “But I know that for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepened divides destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies,” she said.

“It also means the millions of small businesses, weren’t able to reach potential customers, and countless photos of new babies weren’t joyously celebrated by family and friends around the world,” she said.

‘The buck stops with Mark’

Haugen said CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds more than half of all voting shares for Facebook, giving him unilateral control over the company. In that sense, “the buck stops with” him when making major decisions at Facebook.

“There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself,” Haugen told Congress.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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