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On Tuesday, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is appearing before a Senate Commerce subcommittee in what promises to be one of Facebook’s toughest congressional hearings in years. After serving as a source for a string of bombshell reports from The Wall Street Journal, Haugen went public on Sunday with concerns about Instagram’s mental health impacts on its youngest users, drawn from internal Facebook reports.
The result has been a new focus on child safety — a particularly sore point for Facebook. The company has disputed claims that Instagram exacerbates body issues in teenage girls, but the broader concerns about algorithmic amplification of harmful content have been harder to dismiss. In a hearing last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) shared the results of a test in which his own staff was bombarded with Instagram posts related to eating disorders and self-harm after creating a dummy account posing as a teenage girl. Today’s hearing is expected to focus on the same topics, with direct testimony from Haugen on the company’s decisions.
We’ll be updating this post with everything that happens during the hearing — every question from lawmakers, every important quote, and every piece of new information from Haugen. Stay tuned.
In his opening remarks, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) described how Facebook “has put profits ahead of people.” He noted how the platform’s algorithmic feeds can amplify insecurities in its younger users.
“I hope we will discuss whether there is such a thing as a safe algorithm,” Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal also called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to return to Congress to testify on behalf of the Wall Street Journal’s recent revelations on child safety. Facebook has vigorously contested many of Haugen’s claims, but has done so through surrogates like global head of safety Antigone Davis or public relations lead Nick Clegg.
“Rather than taking responsibility and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing,” Blumenthal said.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) tackled Facebook’s business model in her first remarks during the hearing. “Facebook is not interested in making significant changes to improve kids’ safety on their platforms, at least not when that would result in losing eyeballs on post or decreasing their ad revenues,” she said. “Follow the money.”
Following up on last week’s “finsta” discussion, Blackburn says that Facebook turns a blind eye to these private accounts as a means of boosting its active user numbers. Children can use these private accounts to interact with other people and the platform without their parents’ approval, she said.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen said Facebook has “repeatedly” misled the public about “what its own research reveals about the safety of children and the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems as a role in spreading divisive and extreme messages.”
Haugen also called on Congress to take regulatory action to change Facebook’s business incentives to amplify harmful content to its users. She also encouraged lawmakers to push for further transparency into the company to tackle its “closed design.”
“It is unaccountable until the incentives change,” Haugen said. “Facebook will not change.”
But she also showed optimism that the problem can be solved if the government intervenes. “These problems are solvable. A safer, free-speech-respecting social media is possible,” Haugen said. “Facebook can change, but it’s clearly not going to do so on its own.”
Outside of Facebook’s business model, Haugen identified several structural issues that make it more difficult for the company to react to scandals. “Facebook is stuck in a cycle where it struggles to hire. That causes it to understaff projects, which causes scandals, which then makes it harder to hire,” Haugen said.
“A pattern of behavior I saw at Facebook was that, often problems were so understaffed that there was an implicit discouragement from having better detection systems. So for example, I worked on the counterespionage team, and at any given time, our team could only handle a third of the cases we knew about. We knew that if we built even a basic detector, we would likely have even more cases.”
Haugen also pointed out how Facebook’s engagement numbers are often the deciding factor in developing its services. “Mark has built an organization that is very metrics-driven. It is intended to be flat. There is no unilateral responsibility,” she said. “The metrics make the decision.”
In her 60 Minutes interview Sunday, Haugen described how Facebook’s Civic Integrity group dissolved after the 2020 presidential election. Those processes were later reinstated as an emergency decision during the January 6th riots at the US Capitol. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked Haugen why Facebook decided to disband the integrity group.
“Facebook has been emphasizing a false choice,” Haugen told Klobuchar. “They’ve said the safeguards that were in place before the election implicated free speech.”
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has previously introduced legislation to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. On Tuesday, Thune asked Haugen whether a change to that law could encourage Facebook to change its algorithms in a way that decreases user harm.
“I think if we had appropriate oversight, or if we reformed Section 230 to make Facebook responsible for the consequences of their intentional ranking decisions, I think they would get rid of engagement-based ranking because it is causing teenagers to be exposed to more anorexia content. It is pulling families apart, and in places like Ethiopia, it is literally fanning ethnic violence,” Haugen said.
In discussion with Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Haugen came out in support of Section 230 reform that relates to algorithms even though these reforms can be “very complicated.”
“Companies have 100 percent control over their algorithms, and Facebook should not get a free pass on choices it makes to prioritize growth and virality and reactiveness over public safety,” Haugen said. “They’re paying for their profits right now with our safety.”
This post will be updated with more information as the hearing progresses — reload the page to see more content.
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