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Whistleblower testifies Facebook chooses profit over safety,
calls for 'congressional action'
Facebook products 'harm children' and 'weaken our democracy,'
says Frances Haugen
The Associated Press ·
Posted: Oct 05, 2021 8:53 AM ET | Last Updated: 34 minutes ago
Whistleblower and former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen testifies during a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington on Tuesday. (Drew Angerer/Pool/Getty Images)
While accusing the giant social network of pursuing profits over safety, a former Facebook data scientist told U.S. senators on Tuesday that she believes stricter government oversight could alleviate the dangers the company poses, from harming children to inciting political violence and fuelling misinformation.
Frances Haugen, testifying before the Senate commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, presented a wide-ranging condemnation of Facebook.
She accused the company of failing to make changes to Instagram after internal research showed apparent harm to some teens and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.
Haugen's accusations were buttressed by tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company's civic integrity unit.
But she also offered thoughtful ideas about how Facebook's social media platforms could be made safer.
She laid responsibility for the company's profits-over-safety strategy right at the top, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but she also expressed empathy for Facebook's dilemma.
Haugen, who says she joined the company in 2019 because "Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us," said she didn't leak internal documents to a newspaper and then come before Congress in order to destroy the company or call for its breakup, as many consumer advocates and lawmakers of both parties have called for.
The 37-year-old data expert from Iowa has a degree in computer engineering and a master's degree in business from Harvard University. Prior to being recruited by Facebook, she worked for 15 years at tech companies, including Google, Pinterest and Yelp.
"Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy," Haugen said. "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.
"Congressional action is needed," she said. "They won't solve this crisis without your help."
Bipartisan support for more oversight
Democrats and Republicans have shown a rare unity around the revelations of Facebook's handling of potential risks to teens from Instagram, and bipartisan bills have proliferated to address social media and data-privacy problems. But getting legislation through Congress is a heavy slog.
The Federal Trade Commission has taken a stricter stance toward Facebook and other tech giants in recent years.
"Whenever you have Republicans and Democrats on the same page, you're probably more likely to see something," said Gautam Hans, a technology law and free-speech expert at Vanderbilt University's law school in Nashville.
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut listen to Haugen's testimony on Tuesday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Haugen suggested, for example, that the minimum age for Facebook's popular Instagram photo-sharing platform could be increased from the current 13 to 16 or 18.
She also acknowledged the limitations of possible remedies.
Facebook, like other social media companies, uses algorithms to rank and recommend content to users' news feeds. When the ranking is based on engagement — likes, shares and comments — as it is now with Facebook, users can be vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation. Haugen would prefer the ranking to be chronological.
But, she testified, "people will choose the more addictive option even if it is leading their daughters to eating disorders."
'The buck stops with Mark'
Haugen said a 2018 change to the content flow contributed to more divisiveness and ill will in a network ostensibly created to bring people closer together.
Despite the enmity that the new algorithms were feeding, she said Facebook found that they helped keep people coming back — a pattern that helped the social media giant sell more of the digital ads that generate most of its revenue.
Haugen said she believed that Facebook didn't set out to build a destructive platform.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in San Jose, Calif., in May 2018. Haugen testified Tuesday that she believed Zuckerberg was familiar with some of Facebook's internal research showing concerns about potential negative impacts of Instagram.
"I have a huge amount of empathy for Facebook," she said. "These are really hard questions, and I think they feel a little trapped and isolated."
But "in the end, the buck stops with Mark," Haugen said, referring to Zuckerberg, who controls more than 50 per cent of Facebook's voting shares.
"There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself."
Internal research on Instagram's effect on girls
Haugen said she believed that Zuckerberg was familiar with some of the internal research showing concerns about the potential negative impacts of Instagram.
The subcommittee is examining Facebook's use of information from its own researchers on Instagram that could indicate potential harm for some of its young users, especially girls, while it publicly downplayed the negative impacts.
For some of the teens devoted to Facebook's popular photo-sharing platform, the peer pressure generated by the visually focused Instagram led to mental health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, the research leaked by Haugen showed.
One internal study cited 13.5 per cent of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17 per cent of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
She also has filed complaints with federal authorities alleging that Facebook's own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest, but that the company hides what it knows.
'We don't agree with her characterization,' company says
After recent reports in the Wall Street Journal based on documents she leaked to the newspaper raised a public outcry, Haugen revealed her identity in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night on CBS.
As the public relations debacle over the Instagram research grew last week, Facebook put on hold its work on a kids' version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12.
Haugen said that Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and incitement to violence after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in last year's presidential election, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
After the November election, Facebook dissolved the civic integrity unit where Haugen had been working. That, she says, was the moment she realized that "I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous."
Haugen says she told Facebook executives when they recruited her that she wanted to work in an area of the company that fights misinformation because she had lost a friend to online conspiracy theories.
Facebook maintains that Haugen's allegations are misleading and insists there is no evidence to support the premise that it is the primary cause of social polarization.
"Today, a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with (top) executives — and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question. We don't agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about," the company said in a statement.
Character assassination, the first line of attack!
UNICEF Endorses “Sexual Autonomy” for Kids/Biden Approves
By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. |
NEW YORK, October 8 (C-Fam) UNICEF’s Executive Board has approved a strategic plan that endorses sexual autonomy for children and school-based access to abortion and contraception.
The new strategic plan, which will guide the agency through 2025, added “sexual and reproductive health and rights” and “sexual orientation and gender identity” to the agency’s mandate for the first time. The Biden administration endorsed the new plan.
Thirty-six nations that sit on the UNICEF Executive Board endorsed the new plan with the disclaimer that it was not negotiated by UN Member States and that it “includes some terms that have not been intergovernmentally endorsed in the United Nations system.” The decision does not identify the terms in the strategic plan covered by the disclaimer.
The plan further protects Member States by directing the agency to implement the strategic plan “in accordance with the principles of national ownership of programme countries, taking into account their national priorities and needs, recognizing their different contexts and particular characteristics, guided by international human rights treaties and humanitarian principles for humanitarian assistance.”
“Sexual and reproductive health and rights” is a term of art coined by countries and groups to promote abortion, LGBT rights, and sexual autonomy for children. The General Assembly rejected the controversial term when it was first proposed in the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2013 and has rejected it repeatedly in UN negotiations each year since. A large number of UN member states also continue to object to “sexual orientation and gender identity” in UN documents.
The official twitter account of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations praised UNICEF and other UN agencies who also added “sexual and reproductive health and rights” to their mandate recently.
“We commend UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, UNICEF, and UN Women on the successful advancement of the 2022-2025 Strategic Plans and for recognizing the importance of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights to accelerating progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” the tweet reads.
Until this year, the controversial term had only been endorsed in the mandate of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). “Sexual orientation and gender identity” had not been included in any previous strategic plans of UN agencies.
Iran expressed “deep concern” with the inclusion of the terms “sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual rights, comprehensive sexuality education, programming gender in a transformative way” in the plan.
“Iran and a number of delegations have, on numerous occasions, expressed our opposition on the inclusion of such terms in UN documents,” they said.
The Russian Federation also made statement distancing itself from the controversial terminology in the new UNICEF plan.
Appeals court reinstates Texas abortion ban TWO days after
federal judge blocked controversial law
9 Oct, 2021 07:58
© AP / Stephen Spillman
In a blow to the Joe Biden administration, Texas has received a green light to enforce its strict abortion ban again – a mere two days after a federal judge ruled to suspend the law that has sparked an intense legal battle.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the decision by a lower federal court on Friday, thus allowing Texas to resume the enforcement of its abortion law, which effectively prohibits the termination of pregnancy past six weeks of gestation.
Commonly known as the “heartbeat bill,” the statewide abortion law was put on hold on Wednesday after US District Judge Robert Pitman sided with President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, with the White House calling the ruling “an important step toward restoring the constitutional rights of women.”
The victory lap was short-lived, however. With the appeals court granting the Texas government’s request to stay the preliminary injunction on Friday, the DOJ now has until October 12 to respond.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the appellate court’s decision, vowing to “fight federal overreach at every turn.”
In a bid to shield the law from federal challenges, the Texas government argued that it’s not officials, but private citizens who would enforce it by suing abortion providers. Under the law, citizens can be awarded more than $10,000 in damages plus legal costs if successful. Although Texas’ attempt to effectively muddy the waters did not stop the Biden administration from contesting the near-total ban, it has had its desired effect on abortion clinics, some of which have closed their doors since the law went into effect on September 1.
Several abortion providers reportedly resumed services on Thursday, hours before the appeals court reinstated the ban. Commenting on the new twist in what promises to be a protracted legal battle, President of the Center for Reproductive Rights Nancy Northup urged the Supreme Court to “step in and stop the madness.”
The madness has been going on for nearly 50 years. I hope SCOTUS does stop the madness.
The Biden administration has long argued that the law defies the US constitution, insisting it should be declared “null and void.”
‘THIS is the government’s priorities?’: California mandates
gender-neutral aisles in toy stores
10 Oct, 2021 14:25
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law requiring large toy retailers to provide gender-neutral toy sections in their stores. Critics say it’s government overreach, and that Newsom has bigger issues to fix.
The bill, signed into law by Newsom on Saturday, will require toy retailers and chains with more than 500 employees to display toys traditionally marketed at girls or boys together in a special area of floor space. This area can be “labeled at the discretion of the retailer,” according to the bill’s text.
The bill describes the traditional labeling of toys, for example dolls for girls, trucks and guns for boys, as making “it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly impl[ying] that their use by one gender is inappropriate.”
Stores will still be allowed to maintain separate boys and girls sections, but failing to provide a gender-neutral aisle will be punishable by fines of up to $500. Though toy manufacturers have slowly been moving to de-gender their products, California’s law is the first of its kind in any US state.
“Part of it is to make sure if you’re a young girl that you can find a police car, fire truck, a periodic table or a dinosaur,” Assemblyman Evan Low, who introduced the bill, told the Los Angeles Times. “And then similarly, if you’re a boy, if you’re more artistic and want to play with glitter, why not? Why should you feel the stigma of saying, ‘Oh, this should be shamed’ and going to a different location?”
“I think it’s important that we as a state are demonstrating our values of diversity and inclusion.”
Not everyone is as enthusiastic, and the new law was met with ridicule and anger from conservatives online. “Love how a state with high unemployment, crime so bad people are leaving, a homelessness crisis and raging wild fires has the time to mandate gender neutral toys apparently?” one commenter wrote on Twitter.
Even before the law was signed by Newsom, the liberal Los Angeles Times Editorial Board said that while gender-neutral sections in toy stores are a “great idea,” progressive lawmakers “need to check this trend toward interfering in seemingly every aspect of private commerce.”
Exactly! As it states above, they seem to be getting around to that sort of thing anyway.
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