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The Facebook Fiasco
And why I won’t be quitting
On Sunday, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugan told ’60 Minutes’ anchor, Scott Pelley, “Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money”.
She based her comments on the tens of thousands of pages she copied while she worked at Facebook, knowing if she ever came forward she would need iron-clad proof of the secret goings-on of a company known to turn a blind eye to safety and security if they threaten to impact the bottom line.
She went on to talk about the many real instances of young people, especially young girls, who are harmed on Facebook’s sites by the insidious shaming and rage against anyone who might choose to look or act differently. She didn’t back down when she was asked if it could happen without Mark Zuckerberg, the head honcho, knowing about it. No, she said, it could not. (Zuckerberg, you should know, disagrees.)
It was the beginning of the shit hitting the fan, the preface to Monday’s congressional hearing on Facebook practices. Six more hours of compelling testimony (not quite true; much of it was taken up with the usual political grandstanding by committee members speechifying rather than asking legit questions) gave Haugans a chance to solidify her…
