Facebook whistleblower reveals herself, says company prioritizes its own interests – By Steven Musil (CNET) / Oct 3 2021
Former product engineer at the social network says she was disappointed that safety systems put in place for the 2020 election were temporary.
The person who revealed internal Facebook research to the Wall Street Journal that served as the basis for a series of stories about the social network’s knowledge of the harm its platforms cause and its efforts to downplay those harms publicly revealed herself on 60 Minutes on Sunday. She is a former algorithmic product manager at Facebook named Frances Haugen.
Haugen, who worked at Facebook for about two years, told 60 Minutes she leaked the documents to the Journal after seeing a conflict of interest at Facebook between what’s good for the company and what’s good for the public.
“Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” she told 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley in an interview.
“I knew what my future looked like if I continued to stay inside of Facebook, which is person after person after person has tackled this inside of Facebook and ground themselves to the ground,” the 37-year-old data scientist said.
