OFM News: The Facebook Papers

Former Facebook Product Manager Frances Haugen obtained thousands of pages of internal company documents which highlighted the platform’s effects on society and politics. Facebook’s employees had long since warned their superiors of the harmful spread of misinformation on the platform as well as the company’s inability to moderate content effectively. 

According to Haugen, the documents, known as the Facebook Papers, prove that the company’s leaders have repeatedly and knowingly put the company’s image and profitability ahead of public safety. Prior to leaving her position at Facebook, Haugen copied thousands of pages of internal research done by the company, research, Haugen claims, is mostly ignored. 

“We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech, and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world,” the papers read. 

Since the release of the Facebook Papers, the company has been accused of propagating political violence both in the U.S. and abroad. Changes in the website’s algorithm in 2018 have led to more negative content being promoted on the platform. The algorithm shows users content they are more likely to interact with, which in turn is more likely to be controversial topics. 

“Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.”

Portions of the internal reports detail complaints from European political parties which say the parties “… feel strongly that the change to the algorithm has forced them to skew negative in their communications on Facebook … leading them into more extreme policy positions.”

“When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content; it erodes our civic trust; it erodes our faith in each other; it erodes our ability to want to care for each other; the version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” Haugen says on 60 Minutes. 

The genocide in Myanmar that took place in 2018 when the military used Facebook to spread anti-Islamic sentiments as a tool for ethnic cleansing is one of many examples Haugen referenced. 

The company did understand the possible violence surrounding the 2020 presidential election and had turned on safety systems to try to combat misinformation and hate speech. 

“And as soon as the election was over, they turned them back off or they changed the settings back to what they were before to prioritize growth over safety. And that really feels like a betrayal of democracy to me,” Haugen said during the same interview.

That betrayal would culminate during the January 6 insurrection, which was organized largely over social media. Facebook had removed the original Stop the Steal group in November of 2020 but didn’t ban content using the phrase until after the insurrection. 

“We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time, and we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now out of control,” one employee writes on an internal message board, the documents show.

The documents suggest other myriad concerns, including research that suggests Instagram is directly harmful to teenage girls, human trafficking rings in the Middle East using the platform to “sell maids,” and a separate set of content guidelines for high-profile users such as celebrities and politicians. 

Haugen’s lawyers have filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which enforces the law in financial markets. 

“As a publicly-traded company, Facebook is required to not lie to its investors or even withhold material information. So, the SEC regularly brings enforcement actions, alleging that companies like Facebook and others are making material misstatements and omissions that affect investors adversely,” says John Tye, one of Haugen’s lawyers. 

Facebook is a $1 trillion company. Just 17 years old, it has 2.8 billion users, which is 60 percent of all internet-connected people on Earth. Haugen has testified in front of congress in regard to Facebook and believes the federal government should regulate the platform to protect the public.

“Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety. It is subsidizing; it is paying for its profits with our safety,” Haugen says. “I’m hoping that this will have had a big enough impact on the world that they get the fortitude and the motivation to actually go put those regulations into place. That’s my hope.”