Facebook Will Fuel Further Unrest, Whistleblower Says
NDTV
Frances Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, appeared before a parliamentary select committee in Britain that is examining plans to regulate social media companies.
Facebook will fuel more violent unrest around the world because of the way its algorithms are designed to promote divisive content, whistleblower Frances Haugen told the British parliament on Monday.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, appeared before a parliamentary select committee in Britain that is examining plans to regulate social media companies.
She said the social network saw safety as a cost centre, lionised a start-up culture where cutting corners was good, and said it was "unquestionably" making hate worse.
"The events we're seeing around the world, things like Myanmar and Ethiopia, those are the opening chapters because engagement-based ranking does two things: one, it prioritises and amplifies divisive and polarising extreme content and two it concentrates it," she said.
