Mark Zuckerberg denies Facebook places revenue over customers’ security | Engadget

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not testify at right now’s whistleblower listening to, however he has posted a prolonged reply to the accusations being lobbed on the firm. He mentioned the Frances Haugen’s claims do not make sense and that they paint a “false picture” of the social community. “At the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and well-being. That’s just not true,” he wrote in his submit. The Facebook chief cited the Meaningful Social Interactions (MSI) replace to News Feed, which was designed to point out fewer viral movies and extra content material from family and friends. 

He mentioned the corporate went by with the change understanding that it could make folks spend much less time on the web site, as a result of analysis steered it was the suitable factor factor to do for folks’s well-being. In Haugen’s testimony, she painted MSI in a much less flattering gentle. She mentioned Zuckerberg selected to use “metrics defined by Facebook” like MSI “over changes that would have significantly decreased misinformation and other inciting content.” The whistleblower mentioned the CEO was introduced with options to make Facebook “less viral, less twitchy,” however he determined to not use them as a result of that they had a unfavourable affect on the MSI metric. 

In the SEC criticism she filed, Haugen claimed that Facebook allowed “hateful” and “divisive” content material, as a result of it’s “easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions.” Zuckerberg addressed that in his submit, as effectively, calling it “deeply illogical.” Facebook makes cash from advertisements, he mentioned, and advertisers apparently inform the corporate that they do not need their advertisements subsequent to dangerous or offended content material. 

In addition, Zuckerberg mentioned the analysis into how Instagram impacts younger folks was mischaracterized. He did not explicitly point out it, however The Wall Street Journal revealed an article in mid-September about the way it is aware of Instagram is poisonous for teen women primarily based on inside paperwork detailing Facebook’s personal analysis. The social community ultimately revealed a few paperwork from that analysis, however Haugen supplied Congress with 4 extra. Zuckerberg defended the platform, writing that many teenagers the corporate heard from really “feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced.”

Haugen, who joined Facebook in 2019, labored on democracy and misinformation points when she was with the corporate. She introduced “tens of thousands” of pages of inside Facebook paperwork to Whistleblower Aid founder John Tye along with submitting a whistleblower criticism with the SEC. There had been a number of experiences that got here out primarily based on these paperwork, together with the existence of a VIP program that enabled high-profile customers to skirt Facebook’s guidelines. Haugen additionally accused Facebook of contributing to election misinformation and the January sixth US Capitol riots.

As for Zuckerberg, a part of his submit reads:

“If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place? If we didn’t care about fighting harmful content, then why would we employ so many more people dedicated to this than any other company in our space — even ones larger than us? If we wanted to hide our results, why would we have established an industry-leading standard for transparency and reporting on what we’re doing? And if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world?”