Former Facebook employee attacks the social network before the United States Senate
Its main slogan has been “Facebook, a platform that harms children
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen offered her testimony before the US Senate committee on Tuesday.
His main slogan has been " Facebook a platform that hurts children, causes division and weakens our democracy."
37-year-old Frances Haugen, who served as a product manager at Mark Zuckerberg's company, has become the main enemy of the social network, which she has begun to face a few weeks ago.
This is how it has leaked internal documents, known to the press as "Facebook Archives", where the ethics of the company's business are seriously questioned.
On the other hand, Zuckerberg's company states that Haugen has been offering testimonials from areas in which she has no knowledge, thus qualifying it as false.
They prefer profits to people's health
The former employee of the social network revealed last Sunday that it was she who shared some of the internal documents of Facebook with the newspaper " The Wall Street Journal " which generated a great scandal for the company in recent weeks.
In the same way, he has made it clear that the company has repeatedly preferred to put profits above the mental health of people, including that of adolescents who are the ones who use the platform the most.
This Tuesday, October 5, he presented this issue to the Senate: "The leadership of the company has the knowledge of how to make Facebook and Instagram much more secure, but they do not want to make the required changes because that would affect their profits, something that they prefer before people”.
Mark Zuckerberg was not spared, the director of the company was also harshly criticized by the woman. "Today no one is able to hold Mark accountable more than himself." Haugen has pointed out, who also referred to the global failure that the businessman's social networks had.
“Yesterday Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were removed from the Internet, I don't know why it fell, but I know it was for more than five hours, Facebook has been used to deepen divisions, destabilize democracies and make people feel bad about their bodies, especially girls. "As advice to Congressional Senators, Haugen added:" We must act immediately. "
As expected, the social network has rejected all claims that they have acted badly. This is how the company claims to have a solid security record and that it has placed safeguards for events such as the United States elections.
On the other hand, Facebook's director of policy communications has harshly criticized the behavior of the former employee, who has spoken about areas in which she did not work, including Instagram and child safety.
The opinion of the senators was made known
Senators from both parties made their opinion and criticism of Mark Zuckerberg's company known during the hearing.
"Hurting the self-interest and self-esteem punished by Facebook will affect a generation," said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Other opinions were "She is not interested in introducing significant changes to improve the safety of children on her platform, at least not, although that will result in losing eyes on the publications or decreasing the advertising revenues that are highly significant" Added Marsha Blackburn Republican Senator from Tennessee.
On the other hand, Republican Dan Sullivan also made his opinion known, this was how he expressed: “The world at some point will look back and wonder what were we thinking?”This taking into account the revelations that Facebook has about children mainly. While Democratic Senator Edward Markey said, "Your time to invade our privacy and abuse the most fragile like children is over, Congress will take the necessary steps."
Republicans and Democrats agree in Congress after a long time
After a long time, both Democrats and Republicans find an issue in Congress that they can agree on. "Facebook and the threat it poses to people."
In France Haugen's testimony this Tuesday, both senators from the right and left have expressed their concerns regarding the issue and what it generates. They also do not rule out that the social media giant is big and powerful enough to emerge unscathed.
Each of the parties presented different ideas and examples, such as Democrat Amy Klobuchar who said she was concerned that the company's algorithms were promoting the kinds of points that instigated in the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
While the Republican Ted Cruz, I think he considered the conservative views of the social network as censorship. On the other hand, some of the senators from both parties focused on the evidence that Mark Zuckerberg's company will ignore its own investigation where it is accused that Instagram negatively affects the mental health of adolescents.
So far it seems to be a dark present for the social network, which will have to wait for the best measures to be determined to face what worries so many.
, Facebook executives and representatives have little time to take the necessary action if they want to avoid the same fate that Bell had in the 1980s.
