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A Facebook informant takes his campaign to Washington.
Frances Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook who leaked internal documents Wall Street Journal will testify, creating multiple revelations about the company A Senate hearing on Tuesday morning.
The hearing, which began at 10:00 am, is part of Ms. Haugen’s outing aimed at bringing greater government control to the social media giant. He appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday night and is expected to meet with European regulators this month. Ms. Haugen cautioned that Facebook has no incentive to change its primary goal of increasing engagement, even with harmful content, without the intervention of regulators.
Here’s what to expect at the hearing:
Ms. Haugen will focus on the company’s efforts to recruit increasingly younger users. Some of the research she leaked to The Journal showed that Instagram harms teens by feeding off anxiety and, in some cases, suicidal thoughts. The research reported that one in three teens felt worse about their body image because of Instagram.
“I am here today because I believe Facebook products are harming children, fueling division, undermining our democracy, and much more,” Ms. Haugen said in her written statement. “The company’s leadership knows ways to make Facebook and Instagram more secure, and they won’t make the necessary changes because they’re putting their massive profits in front of people. Congressional action is needed.”
Deputies will adopt Ms. Haugen’s testimony. Concerns about children’s online safety have united Republicans and Democrats. They are increasingly resenting Facebook for failing to protect young users and allowing false information to spread.
Lawmakers will investigate what information Facebook administrators have about Instagram’s toxic impact on young users. They’ll likely ask if Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders were aware of but ignored the research on other issues, such as the impact of Instagram on children and the spread of hate groups before the Capitol riots.
Lawmakers will likely also ask Ms. Haugen how the company’s systems work to promote toxic content. They will also focus on how tools like beauty filters, comments and Facebook’s “like” button can connect younger users to Instagram.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and chair of the panel on consumer protection, product safety, and data security, will highlight an experiment his office ran, in which he created an account for a 13-year-old fake user who expressed interest. weight loss. In an interview, he said the account was pushed down a rabbit hole promoting eating disorders and other self-harm.
“I want to talk about perceptions about what I read in these documents and the use of algorithms to increase profits and increase losses at the same time,” said Mr. Blumenthal.
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