- [Makena] On October 5th, Facebook whistleblower
Frances Haugen appeared before a Senate subcommittee
to give testimony, telling lawmakers
about what she learned in her few years
serving on the company's civic integrity team.
What she had to say was devastating for the company.
- I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products
harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.
- This hearing was the culmination of weeks
of escalating concerns over Facebook and Instagram's effects
on their users' mental health.
On September 15th, the Wall Street Journal
published a devastating report
detailing Facebook's internal research
on the negative mental health impact
of Instagram on teenage girls.
One slide from an internal presentation showed
that one in three teen girls said Instagram
made them more unhappy about their bodies.
Facebook has disputed the findings,
saying that the survey only included users
who had previously expressed body image concerns.
But that still hasn't convinced skeptics.
In a hearing the week before,
Facebook Trust and Safety Chief, Antigone Davis,
made the case directly to the same subcommittee
and got a much chillier response.
- I want to be clear that this research is not a bombshell.
It's not causal research.
It's, in fact, just
directional research that - Well, I beg to differ
with you, Ms. Davis. - we use for
product teams.
- This research is a bombshell.
- The report was so damaging because it confirmed
what users of Instagram already know.
The culture of the app can be really unhealthy,
and it's not hard to find accounts
promoting disordered eating or self-harm,
as Senator Blumenthal showed firsthand.
- My office did its own research.
We created an Instagram account,
identified as a 13-year-old girl,
and followed a few easily findable accounts associated
with extreme dieting and eating disorders.
Within a day, its recommendations were exclusively filled
with accounts that promote self-injury
and eating disorders.
That is the perfect storm that Instagram
has fostered and created.
- [Makena] At the time, no one knew how the newspaper
had gotten the report.
But the weekend before the hearing,
Haugen reveal her identity
in a bombshell 60 Minutes interview,
saying the threat posed by Facebook's algorithms
was too important to stay behind the scenes.
- There were conflicts of interest
between what was good for the public
and what was good for Facebook.
And Facebook over and over again chose
to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.
- [Makena] Speaking to Congress,
Haugen painted a picture of Facebook
as internally dysfunctional,
unwilling to commit resources to anything
that didn't boost engagement,
and willfully blind to the platform's biggest problems.
- A pattern of behavior that I saw at Facebook
was that often problems were so understaffed
that there was kind of an implicit discouragement
from having better detection systems.
So for example, I worked...
My last team at Facebook was on the counter espionage team
within the threat intelligence org.
And at any given time, our team could only handle a third
of the cases that we knew about.
We knew that if we built even a basic detector,
we would likely have many more cases.
- Haugen warned against the dangers of
engagement-based ranking.
Basically, any algorithm that promotes content,
it thinks its users are more likely to respond to.
That's what drives extreme and sensational content
to the top of your newsfeed.
And the only way to fix it is to stop building
that kind of algorithm.
- They've written blog posts
on how they know engagement-based rankings is dangerous,
but the AI will save us.
Facebook's own research says
they cannot adequately identify dangerous content.
They can't protect us from the harms
that they know exist in their own system.
- Ultimately, Haugen didn't want Facebook
to be broken up or shut down.
But she said, the only way it'll get better
is if Congress stepped in.
- These problems are solvable.
A safer, free speech respecting,
more enjoyable social media is possible.
But there's one thing that I hope everyone
takes away from these disclosures.
It is that Facebook can change,
but is clearly not going to do so on its own.
- It's still hard to say how much impact
this will have on Facebook.
But over the course of the hearing,
lawmakers showed that they were more determined than ever
to pass laws governing content algorithms.
And if they make good on that promise,
it could mean huge changes for Facebook and its users.
- Here's my message for Mark Zuckerberg:
Your time of invading our privacy, promoting toxic content,
and preying on children and teens is over.
Thank you, Ms. Haugen.
We will act.
This hearing is adjourned.
- Thank you.
Facebook has not earned our right
to just have blind trust in them.
Last week, one of the most beautiful things
I heard on the committee was,
trust is earned, and Facebook has not earned our trust.