"Facebook products have harmed children, fueled divisions, and undermined democracy."
Former Facebook chief product manager Frances Haugan, who appeared as a witness at the hearing of the Consumer Protection Subcommittee under the U.S. Senate Standing Committee held in Washington, DC on the 5th (local time), opened the door for her testimony with these remarks.
In his testimony, Haugan slammed Facebook, the world's largest social media, and called for Congressional action to bring about change for Facebook.
Haugan, a whistleblower who recently exposed insider documents revealing the underside of Facebook, which was recently revealed in media reports, resigned from the company in April.
"Facebook executives don't know how to make Facebook and Instagram safer," Haugan said at the hearing.
He added that "congressional action is needed" and "they cannot solve this crisis without the help of Congress."
Haugan, who has developed search and recommendation-related algorithm products for large IT companies such as Google, Pinterest, and Yelp since 2006, before joining Facebook, said, “I worked for four large companies, but the decisions made inside Facebook It is disastrous for our children, public safety, privacy and democracy.”
"I've seen Facebook repeatedly clash over corporate interests and people's safety," he said while working at Facebook as senior product manager for counterintelligence and counterintelligence.
However, in the midst of these conflicts, Facebook "resolved this conflict in a way that consistently puts its own interests first. The result is more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, more battles." claimed that
Haugan pointed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the target of criticism.
He pointed out that Zuckerberg occupies a very unique position in the tech industry in that he owns more than 55% of Facebook's voting rights. ' he said, CNN reported.
"Mark built a numbers-driven organization," he said. "The numbers make the decisions. If he's Facebook's CEO and chairman, he's responsible for those decisions," he said.
Haugan also detailed internal documents proving the various negative impacts of Facebook's products and services on the same day, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Senators said at a hearing that the disclosure would give momentum to tighter regulations against tech giants.
He also emphasized the need to strengthen privacy protection and antitrust laws, increase online child protection, increase transparency of social media algorithms, and strengthen accountability of online platforms.'
Senator Richard Blumansol (Democratic, Connecticut), who chaired the subcommittee, said Haugan's revelations put Facebook and other big tech companies "at a moment of judgment".
Bluemansol said Facebook was "morally bankrupt" and called on CEO Zuckerberg to appear before Congress to testify.
According to the WSJ, the opposition and opposition parties agree that the US Congress should update the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to keep pace with the times. Some lawmakers are also interested in measures that will help the public and policy makers better understand how social media's content recommendation algorithms work.
At the hearing, Haugan argued that Congress needed to do more than the statutory prescription currently under consideration.
"The seriousness of this crisis raises the need to break out of the existing regulatory framework," he said.
He also argued for the need for an independent government body to compare social media to cars and cigarettes and monitor its ramifications. While there are independent researchers evaluating the health and safety effects of cars and cigarettes, Facebook doesn't.
Facebook is still in a hurry to reduce the impact of the outbreak.
During congressional testimony, company spokeswoman Andy Stone posted on Twitter that Haugan had never dealt with child safety, Instagram or research, and had no knowledge of any of these topics.
"It is not true to imply that we promote bad content and do nothing," Facebook said in a company statement.
Meanwhile, Haugan said, "There are strong national security concerns about how Facebook works today," Haugan said in a statement.
In response, Rep. Blumansol said that national security concerns could be the subject of future hearings, leaving the possibility of further hearings on Facebook open.
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