Safety Culture in the News

Safety Culture in the News

Facebook Whistleblower Drops Bombshell And SEC Suit Alleging Culture Of Profit Over User Safety

amp.hothardware.com/news/face… Haugen, a data scientist and former product manager at Facebook, has revealed herself as the source of a treasure trove of seemingly damning documents alleging that the social network “chooses profit over safety.” It does this by “optimizing for content that gets engagement, or reaction,” even when that content is knowingly harmful, based the social network’s own research, she says. The former product manager was hired in 2019 after being recruited by Facebook. She told 60 Minutes that she accepted the job only after being assured she could help Facebook quell misinformation, due to losing a friend to a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. We all know those knows kinds of people, and they tend to post and share conspiracy theories on social media sites (Facebook included). This is a notion Apple CEO Tim Cook touched on earlier this year, suggesting that “rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories [are] juiced by algorithms.” Disturbed by what she saw, Haugen began secretly copying tens of thousands of documents, which she anonymously shared with The Wall Street Journal. She also filed eight complaints (and possibly more) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month.