In her first public tackle since she leaked a trove of damaging paperwork about Facebook’s inside workings, whistleblower Frances Haugen urged her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to step down and permit change somewhat than devoting assets to a rebrand.

“I think it is unlikely the company will change if [Mark Zuckerberg] remains the CEO,” Haugen informed a packed enviornment on Monday on the opening night time of the Web Summit, a tech fest drawing dozens of 1000’s to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

The former Facebook product supervisor replied within the optimistic to the query of whether or not Zuckerberg ought to resign, and added: “Maybe it’s a chance for someone else to take the reins… Facebook would be stronger with someone who was willing to focus on safety.”

The social community, with practically 3 billion customers, modified its identify to Meta final week, in a rebrand that focuses on constructing the “metaverse,” a shared digital surroundings that it bets would be the successor to the cell Internet.

But early adopters of the digital worlds often known as the metaverse blasted Facebook’s rebranding as an try to capitalise on rising buzz over an idea it didn’t create to deflect from current adverse consideration.

Commenting on the rebranding, Haugen stated it made no sense given the safety points which have but to be tackled.

“Over and over Facebook chooses expansion and new areas instead of sticking the landing on what they’ve already done,” Haugen informed an animated crowd which ceaselessly burst into applause as she spoke.

Facebook’s announcement got here amid robust criticism from lawmakers and regulators over the company’s enterprise practices – significantly its monumental market energy, algorithmic selections and the policing of abuses on its providers.

The social media community, which operates a twin class share construction by means of which Zuckerberg and a small group of buyers management the corporate, has hit again saying the paperwork leaked by Haugen have been getting used to color a “false picture.”

Haugen informed British and American lawmakers final month that Facebook would gas extra violent unrest worldwide until it curbed its algorithms which push excessive, divisive content material and prey on weak demographics to maintain them scrolling.

“A key problem is that the foundation of the platform’s security is based on monitoring content language by language, which does not scale to all the countries where Facebook operates,” Haugen famous.