Facebook whistleblower who leaked thousands of internal documents reveals identity
The firm chooses profits over safety, Frances Haugen alleges
A Facebook whistleblower who leaked a cache of internal documents to regulators and lawmakers has revealed her identity.
In an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes programme on Sunday, Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team, accused the social media company of prioritising profit over public safety.
She said that the firm's own evidence shows that Facebook is lying to the public about making significant progress against misinformation, hate and violence.
Ms Haugen left Facebook in May after becoming frustrated about several actions taken by the company, but before departing, she secretly copied a series of internal document and memos.
Later, she contacted John Tye, the founder of legal non-profit Whistleblower Aid through a mutual contact, and told him that she had access to thousands of Facebook's internal documents, which she wanted to release in public domain, without revealing her actual identity.
Tye agreed to represent her by the alias "Sean" in revelations.
Since then, Ms Haugen has provided thousands of confidential documents to lawmakers and regulators. She also shared those documents with the Wall Street Journal, which last month began releasing the findings in batches, sometimes referred to as the Facebook Files.
The leaks revealed that Facebook knew Instagram was worsening mental health issues among teenagers. The documents also showed that politicians, celebrities, and high-profile users were treated differently by the company, and the moderation policies were either applied differently, or not at all, to such accounts.
These findings have spurred criticism from regulators, lawmakers, and the public.
Haugen has filed a whistleblower complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that Facebook misled investors about it actions.
"I don't trust that [the company is] willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous," Haugen told Scott Pelley of '60 Minutes'.
She has also talked with lawmakers such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and shared subsets of Facebook's internal documents with them.
During the interview on the 60 Minutes programme, Haugen said that when she joined Facebook, it was "substantially worse" at the company "than anything I'd seen before".
One document leaked by Haugen indicates that the social media platform takes action on only 3-5 per cent of hate and 0.6 per cent of violence and incitement content, despite claiming to be the best in taking action against hate content.
Ms Haugen will testify before a Senate subcommittee on 5 October in a hearing about the Facebook's research into the impact of Instagram on the mental health of teenagers.
Last week, Facebook learned about Haugen's upcoming interview on 60 Minutes and sent a message to employees defending the company's policies.
"Social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out," Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of policy and global affairs, wrote in the memo, according to the New York Times.
"But what evidence there is simply does not support the idea that Facebook, or social media more generally, is the primary cause of polarisation."
Clegg also hailed various measures that the Facebook has taken in recent years to deal with hate speech and inflammatory posts.