Facebook:Whistle while you work
“YOU ARE a twenty-first century American hero,” Ed Markey, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said on October 5th. He was not addressing the founder of one of the country’s largest companies, Facebook, but the woman who found fault with it. Frances Haugen, who previously worked at the social-media giant before becoming a whistleblower, testified in front of a Senate subcommittee for over three hours, highlighting Facebook’s “moral bankruptcy” and the firm’s downplaying of its harmful impact, including fanning teenage depression and ethnic violence.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
The public has long suspected Facebook of two-faced toxicity but lacked fresh internal communiqués to prove it. That changed when Ms Haugen released a trove of corporate documents to regulators and the Wall Street Journal. Facebook’s own private research, for example, found that its photo-sharing site, Instagram, worsened teens’ suicidal thoughts and eating disorders, yet it still prioritised sending young users engaging content that stoked their anxiety, all while proceeding to develop a version of its site for those under the age of 13. (Facebook has since paused those plans, due to public pressure.)文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
Senators, who cannot agree on such uncontroversial things as paying for the government’s expenses, united against a common enemy and promised Ms Haugen that they would hold Facebook to account. Could that happen at last?文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
Facebook has survived scandals before. Congress has repeatedly called in tech bosses for angry questioning and public shaming without taking direct action afterward. Congressional hearings “have become like ‘Groundhog Day’ and haven’t really mattered”, is how Paul Gallant of Cowen Washington Research Group, which tracks tech policy, bluntly puts it. In 2018 a different whistleblower outed Facebook for its sketchy collaboration with a research organisation, Cambridge Analytica, which allowed users’ data to be collected without their consent and used for political profiling by Donald Trump’s campaign. Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, went to Washington to apologise, and in 2019 America’s consumer-protection agency, the Federal Trade Commission, agreed to a $5bn settlement with Facebook. That is the largest fine ever levied against a tech firm. However, no laws were ever changed to rein in the company’s misbehaviour.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
This new whistleblowing incident could be a turning point, says Blair Levin, a former chief-of-staff to the Federal Communications Commission and now of New Street Research, a private company. Social media’s harmful effects on children and teenagers is a concern that transcends partisanship and is easier to understand than sneaky data-gathering, viral misinformation and other social-networking sins.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
If Congress does follow through with legislation, it is likely to focus narrowly on protecting children online, as opposed to broader reforms, for which there is still no political consensus. For example, Congress could update and strengthen the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was passed in 1998 and bars data-collection of children under the age of 13. Some want to extend protections to teenagers over the age of 13, as well. Other legislative proposals take aim at marketing and design features that make social media so addictive for the young.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
However, Ms Haugen’s most significant impact on big tech may be inspiring others to come forward and blow the whistle on their employers’ practices. Whistleblower Aid, a legal support group that has helped Ms Haugen’s case, has seen more inbound calls since her revelations were made public. “A case like this one opens the floodgates and will trigger hundreds more cases,” predicts Steve Kohn, a lawyer who has represented several high-profile whistleblowers. Just look at Swiss banking or pharma to understand the viral spread of whistleblowing, he says. According to Siri Nelson of the National Whistleblower Centre, a legal defence firm, whistleblowers do not just change companies: they “change whole industries.”文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
There are several factors that make tech ripe for whistleblowing. One is the industry’s Culture of flouting rules. Another is a legal framework that makes whistleblowing less intimidating than it used to be. The Dodd-Frank Act, which was enacted in 2010, gives greater protections to whistleblowers by preventing retaliation from employers and by offering monetary rewards to successful cases of up to 30% of the money collected from sanctions against a firm. To date, the Securities and Exchange Commission has paid out $1bn to 207 whistleblowers, including more than $500m in its 2021 fiscal year.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
If the threat of public shaming encourages corporate accountability, that is a good thing. But it could also make tech less inclusive and transparent, predicts Matt Perault, a former Facebook executive who is director of the Centre for Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. People may become less willing to share ideas if they worry about public leaks; companies may become less open with their staff; and executives could start including only a handful of trusted senior staff in meetings that might have otherwise been less restricted.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/78.html
Executives are going to have to get used to more leaks. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of policy and global affairs, has defended the company and pushed back against Ms Haugen’s allegations in a memo to the company’s staff, in which he pointed out that last year the company removed 30m posts that violated its policies on terrorism and 19m posts that crossed company lines for inciting hatred. It was barely any time at all before the memo was shared with journalists. Facebook and other big tech firms, which have been criticised for violating people’s privacy online, can no longer count on any privacy either.
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