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10:32
Mark Zuckerberg responds to former Facebook employee
After the accusation of former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, there have been several executives of the social network who have come out to try to discredit her words, after a strong statement made before the United States Senate. Those who have strongly denied that things within the company happen the way she describes them.
Frances Haugen confirmed that she was the one who leaked the company's internal documents to The Wall Street Journal, which she accepted in front of the senators and added that Facebook puts its benefits first over the safety of users.
This policy seriously affects the youngest, so it hides that its platform is harmful to minors, encouraging social division and weakening democracy.
In response to all this, on the part of the firm, one of its Communication and Policy directors of Facebook, Lena Pietsch, spoke, who claims to disagree with Haugen's comments before the Senate. He also wanted to discredit his opinion, referring to the fact that he only worked for the company for two years.
Frances Haugen only lasted two years within the company Facebook
This was made known by Lena Pietsch, who affirmed the following: "She was only with us for two years, she never had any employee under her charge, she never attended meetings with senior managers where important decisions were made and she herself testified that she was not working on the issues she was talking about, so she is mostly unaware of everything she says. "
Another of the company's executives, Andy Stone also expressed himself through the social network Twitter, who pointed out that the former employee never worked on child safety issues or in investigations of this topic, much less on Instagram, and therefore, does not have no knowledge of everything you are accusing.
The spokesperson for the Facebook company was also present in this series of comments, which is how Joe Osborne insisted that the former employee does not know everything she is talking about, so her accusations are totally false.
This referring to the accusation that Facebook deactivated just after the end of the elections all the prevention measures that had been applied before the presidential elections of the United States last year.
So Joe Osbone assured the following: "That is false, we maintained several measures until January 6, and we added other measures after the violence that was generated in the Capitol."
Referring to what was the assault on the headquarters of the United States Congress by the followers of the then president, Donald Trump, who was later accused of those violent acts.
Haugen's strong accusations against the social network
The testimony of the former employee in the Senate was quite strong, so she made a ruthless portrait of the company, emphasizing that during the time she was working there she realized a ruthless truth, thus ensuring that " Facebook hides information from Governments and the public ".
"The documents that have been granted to Congress are strong evidence showing that the social network has repeatedly misled the public, which is why its own investigation reveals important data on the safety of children, its role in expanding divisive messages, the effectiveness of its artificial intelligence and the extremist division. " I insure the former employee.
Mark Zuckerberg gives a forceful response to the accusation by Frances Haugen
Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg has written the following on his Facebook page: "I want to share a note I wrote to everyone at our company."
"Hello everyone : It has been a great week and I want to share some of my ideas with all of you.
For starters, the SEV that shut down all of our services was one of the worst outages we've had in a long time. Because of this, we have had to spend the last few hours analyzing how our system can be further strengthened against such failures.
This has also been a kind of reminder of how vital and important our work is to people. The most important concern with this type of failure is the inconvenience caused to the people who depend on our service to manage their business, support their clients or to communicate with their loved ones and not how many people switch to competitive services. or how much money is lost.
Secondly, as today's testimony has ended, I want to reflect on the public debate in which we find ourselves. I am completely sure that many of you have had a hard time reading everything that has been published recently, because simply none of it reflects the company that we all know.
Everyone in the company is constantly concerned about the issues of safety, mental health and the well-being of people. It is difficult to have to see a coverage that misrepresents everything that has been our motives and our work. I believe and I am sure that most of us do not recognize the false image that is wanted to be painted about the company.
It has been seen that many of the statements by the accuser do not make any sense. If we really wanted to ignore the allegation, then why would we create a leading research program so that we can understand the important issues in the first place? If it is true that we are not interested in combating malicious content, why do we employ so many dedicated people? combat harmful content? If we want to hide the results, why would we have established a market leading standard for transparency and presentation of files on what is being done?
If it is true that social media was as responsible for polarizing society as some specific people are claiming, why is it witnessing an increase in polarization in the United States, while it remains stable or declining in most of the United States? countries with excessive use of social networks?
The main motive behind the accusations ensures that we are prioritizing our profits over the welfare and safety over the people. Something that is simply not true. An example of this was the move challenged when the significant social interaction change was introduced in the News Feed.
It was a change that shows less viral videos and more content from family and friends, this was done even knowing that it could cause people to spend less time on Facebook, but according to the research it suggested that it was the most correct for him. welfare of people, especially children. Would a company that is focused only on its own profit do that? Isn't taking these measures worrying about people's well-being even though it negatively affects you?
Likewise, the argument made that we promote in a contained way that infuriates people for profit is completely illogical. The company makes money from its ads, and advertisers are constantly telling us that they don't want their ads to appear alongside content that is harmful to society. So far, I have not met the first technology company to propose to create products that upset or depress people. So many business, moral and product incentives point in a completely opposite direction.
However, I want to focus mostly on the questions that arise from our work with children. I have spent much of my time reflecting on the type of experience I want my children and other children to have when being online, so it is very important to me that everything that is created is completely safe and good for them..
It is no secret to anyone that young people use technology. Just think how many school-age children have a smartphone. Rather than ignoring this, technology companies should focus on creating experiences that nurture children's needs while being safe. Our company is committed to doing exemplary work in this area. An example of our commitment and good work is Messenger Kids, which is widely recognized as the safest of all alternatives.
In the same way, we have been working to provide this type of experience in a responsible way, applying parental controls for Instagram according to the age of the children. But understanding all the questions about whether this is really safe for children, we have made the decision to stop the project to take a lot more time and engage with the experts to make sure that everything that is done is really worth it.
Like many of you, it was quite difficult for me to read the wrong characterization of the research on how my social networks affect young people, especially Instagram. As mentioned in the newsroom to explain this: The research actually showed how teens are motivated to use Instagram to fight through tough times and deal with all the problems teens have always faced.
Even in 11 of 12 areas on the slide that the diary refers to, including areas of anxiety, loneliness, eating problems, sadness, teens said that Instagram helped them make those times better rather than worse.
When it comes to the well-being or health of young people, all negative experiences are important to consider.
It is very difficult and sad to think that a young man who is going through a bad time instead of being comforted, has worsened his experience using the social network. To avoid this, we have worked for years to help people at this time and I am very satisfied with the work that has been done.
We use our research very often to improve our work. We also work to balance other social issues. I don't think private companies have to make the decisions themselves. That is why we have advocated for regulations on the use of the Internet for several years.
I have testified before Congress repeatedly and asked them to update these regulations.
I have also written op-ed pieces that talk about areas of regulation that are thought to be essential in relation to elections, privacy content, competition, and harmful.
We are fully committed to improving our work as much as we can, but for sure, the body capable of evaluating the trade-offs between social equity is the democratically elected Congress.
To improve all this, it is important to ask ourselves the following questions: What is the recommended age for adolescents to start using Internet services? How should internet services verify people's age? How should companies balance teen privacy while allowing parents to have full visibility of their activity?
If the ideal is to have a complete conversation about the effects of social media on the youngest, then it is important to have a complete picture. We as a company are committed to conducting more research and having it publicly exposed.
Having said all this, the truth is that I am concerned about all the incentives that are being exposed here, we have a research program in the industry that allows us to identify problems and thus work on them as quickly as possible.
It is very unfortunate to have to see that work out of context and used only to build a lying narrative that we do not care about. If we attack all organizations focused on efforts to study their impact on the world, then we will be sending a message that it is best not to look at all, in case something comes up that can be reproached.
Everything indicates that this is the conclusion that other companies have reached, and all this will unfortunately lead to a worse place for society. Surely it would be easier for us to continue down that path, but we will continue investigating because it is the most correct.
It is very frustrating to have to see how they speak badly and lies about the good work we are doing, especially a job in which you are collaborating, where the security system, investigation, products and investigation are handled.
I am confident that in the long term, if we continue to try to do the right thing, offer experiences that improve people's lives, it will all work out better for our society and our business.
That is why I have asked the leaders of the company to further deepen our work in many areas over the next few days, so that everyone can see everything that is being done there.
When I look at our work and reflect on what is done, I realize all the real impact we have on the world, people can now stay connected with their family and friends regardless of distance, find a community, create opportunities, between other
This is the main reason why millions of people love what we do. I am proud of everything we do to build the best social products in the world and I am very grateful to all of you for the work you do here day after day".
