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Meta has made some modifications within the 12 months since tech whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations, however Haugen doesn’t suppose it has accomplished sufficient.
“They haven’t actually realized the precise lesson,” Haugen mentioned at Vox Media’s Code Conference on Tuesday.
Haugen, a former product manager at Meta (previously often called Facebook), made waves last fall when she leaked an in depth trove of inner paperwork suggesting that the corporate knew greater than it let on concerning the harms its merchandise could cause to society.
One of essentially the most controversial paperwork in Haugen’s leak was inner analysis at Instagram displaying the app negatively impacts some youngsters’ psychological well being. One study found that around 13 percent of UK teens and 6 percent of American teens polled linked Instagram to suicidal ideas.
Since then, laws about social media and youngsters has both passed or been proposed, and Instagram launched parental controls — a “significant change,” Haugen famous. But Meta has additionally “additional dissolved” its election integrity efforts and “invested much less and fewer” in accountable AI, Haugen mentioned.
“People had been warning Facebook for years: If you disguise the soiled laundry, finally the soiled laundry will get aired, and it’ll be worse than it’ll be when you simply fess as much as it now,” she mentioned. Meta hasn’t acknowledged its position on the planet and on the web or stepped as much as be extra accountable stewards, Haugen mentioned, including, “I don’t suppose they’ve realized that lesson but.”
Haugen positioned a lot of the accountability for that on the toes of the one who has extra management of Meta than anybody else: its CEO and co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and the “echo chamber” round him.
“They haven’t but admitted that the best way they had been doing enterprise is what precipitated their issues,” Haugen mentioned. “Because Mark is unaccountable, he can encompass himself with individuals who inform tales like that, who say, ‘You are the sufferer right here.’ And actuality by no means has to weigh in with penalties.”
Haugen mentioned she’d prefer to see Zuckerberg have so much much less management over his firm, and her “private fantasy” can be the Securities and Exchange Commission utilizing its authority to power Zuckerberg to dump a few of his shares.
“Then we might have the traditional company oversight processes take impact,” she mentioned.
Haugen did supply up some sympathy for Zuckerberg, nevertheless, concluding her speak by saying she had compassion for him due to how typically disliked he’s, and is aware of that he’s. She additionally had a suggestion for the way he may repair that.
“Is there one thing else you are able to do along with your life?” she requested.
