Who Will Answer the Mother of All Questions as Anti-Social Facebook Faces Reality Check?
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere…” Elie Wiesel
Well, well, well … the chickens have finally come home to roost and the fox is trapped and documented.
To open the door, it took a conscientious whistleblower, Frances Haugen, a data scientist with a computer engineering degree and a Harvard MBA who wanted to work against misinformation because she had lost a friend to online conspiracy theories on Facebook.
She released tens of thousands of pages of internal research and documents to lawyers and SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) replete with evidence that Facebook was aware of several problems caused by its apps like Instagram with its “toxic” effect on teen girls.
In a Senate subcommittee hearing she testified, “I believe that Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy … 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.”
