A Facebook whistleblower goes before US lawmakers Tuesday to urge regulation of the social media giant after an outage impacted potentially billions of users and highlighted global dependence on its services.
Ex-employee Frances Haugen is set to testify on Capitol Hill after she leaked reams of internal research to authorities and the Wall Street Journal, which detailed how Facebook knew its sites were potentially harmful to young people’s mental health.
She will speak before senators less than a day after Facebook, its photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp went offline for roughly seven hours, with “billions of users” impacted, according to tracker Downdetector.
In excerpts of Haugen’s testimony leaked to US media, she argues for regulation of the closely scrutinized company that is woven into the daily lives of so many people.
“When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action,” the excerpts said. “I implore you to do the same here.”
Facebook has pushed back hard against the outrage regarding its practices and their impact, but this is just the latest crisis to hit the Silicon Valley giant.
US lawmakers for years have threatened to regulate Facebook and other social media platforms to address criticisms that the tech giants trample on privacy, provide a megaphone for dangerous misinformation and damage young people’s well-being.
After years of fierce criticism directed at social media, without major legislative overhauls, some experts were skeptical that change was coming.
“It’s going to have to come down to the platforms, feeling pressure from their users feeling pressure from their employees,” Mark Hass, an Arizona State University professor to wordpress-691024-2282346.cloudwaysapps.com.
