A new public interest witness accuses Facebook of choosing to make a profit over content retention, according to the Washington Post, as the social media giant struggles to break free from the scandal caused by the revelations of Frances Haugen.
According to an article in the American newspaper published on Friday, this second public witness is, like Haugen, a former Facebook employee, a member of the platform’s political integrity team, who submitted a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In this written statement, the former employee of the company of Silicon Valley quotes specific comments that were made in 2017, when the company decided the best way to manage the dispute related to the Russian involvement in the US presidential elections in 2016 and was done through Facebook. .
“It will be a fortune that will pass. Elected officials will grumble. And in a few weeks, they will be doing something else. “In the meantime, we’re making money in the basement and all is well,” said Tucker Bowds, a member of Facebook’s communications team.
This second public interest witness signed his written statement on October 13, a week after Haugen’s testimony before a committee of the US Congress.
The 37-year-old computer engineer, former employee at Facebookdescribed as a “heroine” by a Democratic senator, claimed that the leaders of the California company, led by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “choose their profits over our security.”
She had previously leaked to the Wall Street Journal internal documents that shed new light on known effects of social media use, such as the psychological problems of teenage girls who are overly exposed to seemingly “perfect” lives and influencers’ bodies on Instagram.
According to the Washington Post, the testimony of this new witness to the Hellenic Capital Market Commission confirms that Facebook executives regularly undermine efforts to combat misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content for fear of angering former President Donald Trump and his political allies and in order not to risk losing the attention of the users, necessary for the dizzying profits of the company.
Asked by Agence France-Presse, Erin McPaik, a Facebook spokeswoman, said the article was “below the level of the Washington Post, which has been publishing articles for the past five years only after researching the validity and finding numerous sources.”
Silicon Valley’s company has been embroiled in controversy in recent years, ranging from content management on its platform, especially during elections, to its financial strategy, which many governments consider to be in violation of competition rules.
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