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      Nick Clegg to decide on Trump’s 2023 return to Instagram and Facebook

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      Nick Clegg to decide on Trump’s 2023 return to Instagram and FacebookMeta’s president of global affairs said it would be a decision ‘I oversee’ after the ex-president’s accounts were suspended in 2021 Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, is charged with deciding whether Donald Trump will be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram in 2023, Clegg said on Thursday.Speaking at an event held in Washington by news organization Semafor, Clegg said the company was seriously debating whether Trump’s accounts should be reinstated and said it was a decision that “I oversee and I drive”.Judge asks Trump’s team for proof that FBI planted documents at Mar-a-Lago Read moreClegg added that while he will be making the final call, he will consult the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook board of directors and outside experts.“It’s not a capricious decision,” he said. “We will look at the signals related to real-world harm to make a decision whether at the two-year point – which is early January next year – whether Trump gets reinstated to the platform.”The former president was suspended from a number of online platforms, including those owned by Meta, following the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot during which Trump used his social media accounts to praise and perpetuate the violence.While Twitter banned Trump permanently, Meta suspended Trump’s accounts for two years, to be later re-evaluated. In May 2021, a temporary ban was upheld by Facebook’s oversight board – a group of appointed academics and former politicians meant to operate independently of Facebook’s corporate leadership.However, the board returned the final decision on Trump’s accounts to Meta, suggesting the company decide in six months whether to make the ban permanent. Clegg said that decision will be made by 7 January 2023.Clegg previously served as Britain’s deputy prime minister and joined Facebook as vice‑president for global affairs and communications in 2018. In February, he was promoted to the top company policy executive role.In the years since he began at Meta, Clegg has seen the company through a number of scandals, including scrutiny of its policies during the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook’s role in the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the revelations made by whistleblower Frances Haugen.TopicsDonald TrumpNick CleggMark ZuckerbergFacebookInstagramUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Facebook owner reportedly paid Republican firm to push message TikTok is ‘the real threat’

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      Facebook owner reportedly paid Republican firm to push message TikTok is ‘the real threat’Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, solicited campaign accusing TikTok of being a danger to American children Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, is reportedly paying a notable GOP consulting firm to create public distrust around TikTok.The campaign, launched by Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory, placed op-eds and letters to the editor in various publications, accusing TikTok of being a danger to American children, along with other disparaging accusations.The firm wanted to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” wrote a director for the firm in a February email, part of a trove of emails revealed by the Washington Post.“Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids,’” another staffer wrote.Campaign operatives promoted stories to local media, including some unsubstantiated claims, that tied TikTok to supposedly dangerous trends popular among teenagers – despite those trends originating on Facebook.Such trends included the viral 2021 “devious lick” trend, where students vandalized school property. Targeted Victory pushed stories on “devious lick” to local publications in Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Washington DC. But the trend originally spread on Facebook, according to an investigation by Anna Foley with the podcast Reply All.Campaign workers also used anti-TikTok messages to deflect from criticisms that Meta had received for its privacy and antitrust policies.“Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused,” wrote a Targeted Victory staffer.In a comment to the Post, a TikTok representative said that the company was “deeply concerned” about “the stoking of local media reports on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform”.A Meta representative, Andy Stone, defended the campaign to the Washington Post, saying: “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success.”TopicsTikTokRepublicansFacebookMetaSocial networkingUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta board

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta boardThiel, a major donor to the Republican party, was seen by critics as part of the reason why Facebook did not censor Trump Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is stepping down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after 17 years.Finally, Facebook can say it’s not the most toxic social network | Marina HydeRead moreThiel, Facebook’s longest-serving board member and a major donor to the Republican party, plans to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections, according to the New York Times. He recently donated $10m each to the Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio. Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel’s family office and Vance used to work at one of Thiel’s venture funds.Thiel has long been a controversial figure on Facebook’s 10-person board, particularly as one of a few major tech figures who vocally supported Trump. Thiel, who donated millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign and served on the ex-president’s transition team, was seen by critics as a part of the reason Facebook did not take down Trump’s posts that violated its community standards. Thiel is a close confidant of Zuckerberg’s. He accompanied him to a private dinner with Trump in 2019 and has successfully advocated he withstand pressure to take political speech and ads off the platform.But recently he has publicly criticized Facebook’s content moderation decisions, saying he’d “take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth”.Thiel joined Facebook’s board in 2005, a year after the company was founded and seven years before its made its debut on Wall Street. The company said on Monday that he would stay on until Meta’s next shareholder meeting later this year, where he would not stand for re-election.“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he’s done for our company,” said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, in a statement. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”In a statement on Monday, Thiel called Zuckerberg “one of the great entrepreneurs of our time” and praised his “intelligence, energy and conscientiousness”.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting.TopicsFacebookMetaSocial networkingPeter ThielRepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel subpoenas Google, Facebook and Twitter for digital records

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      Capitol attack panel subpoenas Google, Facebook and Twitter for digital recordsSelect committee seeks records related to January 6 attackMove suggests panel is ramping up inquiry of social media posts The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack subpoenaed Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit on Thursday for records related to the 6 January insurrection, as it seeks to review data that could potentially incriminate the Trump White House.Facebook is part of Meta and Google is part of Alphabet.The move by the select committee suggests the panel is ramping up its examination of social media posts and messages that could provide evidentiary evidence as to who might have been in contact with the Trump White House around 6 January, one source said.Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said in a statement that he authorized the four subpoenas since those platforms were used to communicate plans about the Capitol attack, and yet the social media companies ignored earlier requests.The subpoenas to the four social media companies were the last straw for the select committee after repeated engagements with the platforms went unheeded, Thompson said in letters that amounted to stinging rebukes over the platforms’ lack of cooperation.Thompson said in the subpoena letter to Twitter that the select committee was interested in obtaining key documents House investigators suspect the company is withholding that could shed light on how users used the platform to plan and execute the Capitol attack.The chairman said the select committee was interested in records from Reddit, since the “r/The_Donald” subreddit that eventually migrated to a website of the same name hosted significant discussion and planning related to the Capitol attack.Thompson said House investigators were seeking materials from Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube, which was a platform for significant communications by its users who played key roles in the Capitol attack.The select committee has been examining digital fingerprints left by the Trump White House and other individuals connected to the Capitol attack since the outset of the investigation, on everything from posts that show geolocations to metadata, the source said.To that end, the select committee issued data preservation requests to 35 telecom and social media companies in August, demanding that they save the materials in the event the panel’s technical team required their release, the source said.The Guardian first reported that month that the select committee, among other individuals, had requested the telecom and social media firms preserve the records of the former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in addition to a dozen House Republicans.The select committee gave the social media companies a 27 January deadline to comply with the subpoenas, but it was not clear whether the organizations would comply. A spokesperson for Twitter and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader who refused a request for cooperation late on Wednesday by the select committee, has previously threatened telecom and social media companies if they comply with the bipartisan panel’s investigation.“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law,” McCarthy said at the time in August. “A Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”TopicsUS Capitol attackFacebookGoogleUS politicsSocial networkingAlphabetnewsReuse this content More

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      Facebook revelations: what is in cache of internal documents?

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      FacebookFacebook revelations: what is in cache of internal documents?Roundup of what we have learned after release of papers and whistleblower’s testimony to MPs Dan Milmo Global technology editorMon 25 Oct 2021 14.42 EDTLast modified on Mon 25 Oct 2021 16.04 EDTFacebook has been at the centre of a wave of damaging revelations after a whistleblower released tens of thousands of internal documents and testified about the company’s inner workings to US senators.Frances Haugen left Facebook in May with a cache of memos and research that have exposed the inner workings of the company and the impact its platforms have on users. The first stories based on those documents were published by the Wall Street Journal in September.Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen calls for urgent external regulationRead moreHaugen gave further evidence about Facebook’s failure to act on harmful content in testimony to US senators on 5 October, in which she accused the company of putting “astronomical profits before people”. She also testified to MPs and peers in the UK on Monday, as a fresh wave of stories based on the documents was published by a consortium of news organisations.Facebook’s products – the eponymous platform, the Instagram photo-sharing app, Facebook Messenger and the WhatsApp messaging service – are used by 2.8 billion people a day and the company generated a net income – a US measure of profit – of $29bn (£21bn) last year.Here is what we have learned from the documents, and Haugen, since the revelations first broke last month.Teenage mental healthThe most damaging revelations focused on Instagram’s impact on the mental health and wellbeing of teenage girls. One piece of internal research showed that for teenage girls already having “hard moments”, one in three found Instagram made body issues worse. A further slide shows that one in three people who were finding social media use problematic found Instagram made it worse, with one in four saying it made issues with social comparison worse.Facebook described reports on the research, by the WSJ in September, as a “mischaracterisation” of its internal work. Nonetheless, the Instagram research has galvanised politicians on both sides of the Atlantic seeking to rein in Facebook.Violence in developing countriesHaugen has warned that Facebook is fanning ethnic violence in countries including Ethiopia and is not doing enough to stop it. She said that 87% of the spending on combating misinformation at Facebook is spent on English content when only 9% of users are English speakers. According to the news site Politico on Monday, just 6% of Arabic-language hate content was detected on Instagram before it made its way on to the platform.Haugen told Congress on 5 October that Facebook’s use of engagement-based ranking – where the platform ranks a piece of content, and whether to put it in front of users, on the amount of interactions it gets off people – was endangering lives. “Facebook … knows, they have admitted in public, that engagement-based ranking is dangerous without integrity and security systems, but then not rolled out those integrity and security systems to most of the languages in the world. And that’s what is causing things like ethnic violence in Ethiopia,” she said.Divisive algorithm changesIn 2018 Facebook changed the way it tailored content for users of its news feed feature, a key part of people’s experience of the platform. The emphasis on boosting “meaningful social interactions” between friends and family meant that the feed leant towards reshared material, which was often misinformed and toxic. “Misinformation, toxicity and violent content are inordinately prevalent among reshares,” said internal research. Facebook said it had an integrity team that was tackling the problematic content “as efficiently as possible”.Tackling falsehoods about the US presidential electionThe New York Times reported that internal research showed how, at one point after the US presidential election last year, 10% of all US views of political material on Facebook – a very high proportion for the platform – were of posts alleging that Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent. One internal review criticised attempts to tackle “Stop the Steal” groups spreading claims that the election was rigged. “Enforcement was piecemeal,” said the research. The revelations have reignited concerns about Facebook’s role in the 6 January riots.Facebook said: “The responsibility for the violence that occurred … lies with those who attacked our Capitol and those who encouraged them.” However, the WSJ has also reported that Facebook’s automated systems were taking down posts generating only an estimated 3-5% of total views of hate speech.Disgruntled Facebook staffWithin the files disclosed by Haugen are testimonies from dozens of Facebook employees frustrated by the company’s failure to either acknowledge the harms it generates, or to properly support efforts to mitigate or prevent those harms. “We are FB, not some naive startup. With the unprecedented resources we have, we should do better,” wrote one employee quoted by Politico in the wake of the 6 January attack on the US capitol.“Never forget the day Trump rode down the escalator in 2015, called for a ban on Muslims entering the US, we determined that it violated our policies, and yet we explicitly overrode the policy and didn’t take the video down,” wrote another. “There is a straight line that can be drawn from that day to today, one of the darkest days in the history of democracy … History will not judge us kindly.”Facebook is struggling to recruit young usersA section of a complaint filed by Haugen’s lawyers with the US financial watchdog refers to young users in “more developed economies” using Facebook less. This is a problem for a company that relies on advertising for its income because young users, with unformed spending habits, can be lucrative to marketers. The complaint quotes an internal document stating that Facebook’s daily teenage and young adult (18-24) users have “been in decline since 2012-13” and “only users 25 and above are increasing their use of Facebook”. Further research reveals “engagement is declining for teens in most western, and several non-western, countries”.Haugen said engagement was a key metric for Facebook, because it meant users spent longer on the platform, which in turn appealed to advertisers who targeted users with adverts that accounted for $84bn (£62bn) of the company’s $86bn annual revenue. On Monday, Bloomberg said “time spent” for US teenagers on Facebook was down 16% year-on-year, and that young adults in the US were also spending 5% less time on the platform.Facebook is built for divisive contentOn Monday the NYT reported an internal memo warning that Facebook’s “core product mechanics”, or its basic workings, had let hate speech and misinformation grow on the platform. The memo added that the basic functions of Facebook were “not neutral”. “We also have compelling evidence that our core product mechanics, such as vitality, recommendations and optimising for engagement, are a significant part of why these types of speech flourish on the platform,” said the 2019 memo.A Facebook spokesperson said: “At the heart of these stories is a premise which is false. Yes, we are a business and we make profit, but the idea that we do so at the expense of people’s safety or wellbeing misunderstands where our own commercial interests lie. The truth is we have invested $13bn and have over 40,000 people to do one job: keep people safe on Facebook.”Facebook avoids confrontations with US politicians and rightwing news organisationsA document seen by the Financial Times showed a Facebook employee claiming Facebook’s public policy team blocked decisions to take down posts “when they see that they could harm powerful political actors”. The document said: “In multiple cases the final judgment about whether a prominent post violates a certain written policy are made by senior executives, sometimes Mark Zuckerberg.” The memo said moves to take down content by repeat offenders against Facebook’s guidelines, such as rightwing publishers, were often reversed because the publishers might retaliate. The wave of stories on Monday were based on disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission – the US financial watchdog – and provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen’s legal counsel. The redacted versions were obtained by a consortium of news organisations including the NYT, Politico and Bloomberg.TopicsFacebookSocial mediaSocial networkingUS Capitol attackUS politicsDigital mediaanalysisReuse this content More

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      Facebook boss ‘not willing to protect public from harm’

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      The ObserverFacebookFacebook boss ‘not willing to protect public from harm’ Frances Haugen says chief executive has not shown any desire to shield users from the consequences of harmful content Dan MilmoSat 23 Oct 2021 21.02 EDTLast modified on Sun 24 Oct 2021 04.23 EDTThe Facebook whistleblower whose revelations have tipped the social media giant into crisis has launched a stinging new criticism of Mark Zuckerberg, saying he has not shown any readiness to protect the public from the harm his company is causing.Frances Haugen told the Observer that Facebook’s founder and chief executive had not displayed a desire to run the company in a way that shields the public from the consequences of harmful content.Her intervention came as pressure mounted on the near-$1tn (£730bn) business following a fresh wave of revelations based on documents leaked by Haugen, a former Facebook employee. The New York Times reported that workers had repeatedly warned that Facebook was being flooded with false claims about the 2020 presidential election result being fraudulent and believed the company should have done more to tackle it.Frances Haugen: ‘I never wanted to be a whistleblower. But lives were in danger’Read moreHaugen, who appears before MPs and peers in Westminster on Monday, said Zuckerberg, who controls the business via a majority of its voting shares, has not shown any willingness to protect the public.“Right now, Mark is unaccountable. He has all the control. He has no oversight, and he has not demonstrated that he is willing to govern the company at the level that is necessary for public safety.”She added that giving all shareholders an equal say in the running of the company would result in changes at the top. “I believe in shareholder rights and the shareholders, or shareholders minus Mark, have been asking for years for one share one vote. And the reason for that is, I am pretty sure the shareholders would choose other leadership if they had an option.”Haugen, who quit as a Facebook product manager in May, said she had leaked tens of thousand of documents to the Wall Street Journal and to Congress because she had realised that the company would not change otherwise.She said: “There are great companies that have done major cultural changes. Apple did a major cultural change; Microsoft did a major cultural change. Facebook can change too. They just have to get the will.”This weekend, a consortium of US news organisations released a fresh wave of stories based on the Haugen documents. The New York Times reported that internal research showed how, at one point after the US presidential election last year, 10% of all US views of political material on Facebook – a very high proportion for Facebook – were of posts falsely alleging that Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent. One internal review criticised attempts to tackle Stop the Steal groups spreading claims on the platform that the election was rigged. “Enforcement was piecemeal,” said the research.The revelations have reignited concerns about Facebook’s role in the 6 January riots, in which a mob seeking to overturn the election result stormed the Capitol in Washington. The New York Times added that some of the reporting for the story was based on documents not released by Haugen.A Facebook spokesperson said: “At the heart of these stories is a premise which is false. Yes, we’re a business and we make profit, but the idea that we do so at the expense of people’s safety or wellbeing misunderstands where our commercial interests lie. The truth is we’ve invested $13bn and have over 40,000 people to do one job: keep people safe on Facebook.”Facebook’s vice-president of integrity, Guy Rosen, said the company had put in place multiple measures to protect the public during and after the election and that “responsibility for the [6 January] insurrection lies with those who broke the law during the attack and those who incited them”.It was also reported on Friday that a new Facebook whistleblower had come forward and, like Haugen, had filed a complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, alleging that the company declined to enforce safety rules for fear of angering Donald Trump or impacting Facebook’s growth.Haugen will testify in person on Monday to the joint committee scrutinising the draft online safety bill, which would impose a duty of care on social media companies to protect users from harmful content, and allow the communications regulator, Ofcom, to fine those who breach this. The maximum fine is 10% of global turnover, so in the case of Facebook, this could run into billions of pounds. Facebook, whose services also include Instagram and WhatsApp, has 2.8 billion daily users and generated an income last year of $86bn.As well as issuing detailed rebuttals of Haugen’s revelations, Facebook is reportedly planning a major change that would attempt to put some distance between the company and its main platform. Zuckerberg could announce a rebranding of Facebook’s corporate identity on Thursday, according to a report that said the company is keen to emphasise its future as a player in the “metaverse”, a digital world in which people interact and lead their social and professional lives virtually.Haugen said Facebook must be compelled by all regulators to be more transparent with the information at its disposal internally, as detailed in her document leaks. She said one key reform would be to set up a formal structure whereby regulators could demand reports from Facebook on any problem that they identify.“Let’s imagine there was a brand of car that was having five times as many car accidents as other cars. We wouldn’t accept that car company saying, ‘this is really hard, we are trying our best, we are sorry, we are trying to do better in the future’. We would never accept that as an answer and we are hearing that from Facebook all the time. There needs to be an avenue where we can escalate a concern and they actually have to give us a response.”TopicsFacebookThe ObserverSocial networkingMark ZuckerbergUS elections 2020US CongressUS politicsReuse this content More

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      Facebook missed weeks of warning signs over Capitol attack, documents suggest

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      FacebookFacebook missed weeks of warning signs over Capitol attack, documents suggestMaterials provided by Frances Haugen to media outlets shine light on how company apparently stumbled into 6 January Guardian staff and agenciesSat 23 Oct 2021 14.22 EDTFirst published on Sat 23 Oct 2021 12.23 EDTAs extremist supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol on 6 January, battling police and forcing lawmakers into hiding, an insurrection of a different kind was taking place inside the world’s largest social media company.Thousands of miles away, in California, Facebook engineers were racing to tweak internal controls to slow the spread of misinformation and content likely to incite further violence.Emergency actions – some of which were rolled back after the 2020 election – included banning Trump, freezing comments in groups with records of hate speech and filtering out the “Stop the Steal” rallying cry of Trump’s campaign to overturn his electoral loss, falsely citing widespread fraud. Officials have called it the most secure election in US history.Actions also included empowering Facebook content moderators to act more assertively by labeling the US a “temporary high risk location” for political violence.At the same time, frustration inside Facebook erupted over what some saw as the company’s halting and inconsistent response to rising extremism in the US.“Haven’t we had enough time to figure out how to manage discourse without enabling violence?” one employee wrote on an internal message board at the height of the 6 January turmoil.“We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now out of control.”It’s a question that still hangs over the company today, as Congress and regulators investigate Facebook’s role in the events.New internal documents have been provided to a number of media outlets in recent days by the former Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen, following her initial disclosures and claims that the platform puts profits before public good, and her testimony to Congress.The outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and NBC, published reports based on those documents, which offer a deeper look into the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories on the platform, particularly related to the 2020 US presidential election.They show that Facebook employees repeatedly flagged concerns before and after the election, when Trump tried to falsely overturn Joe Biden’s victory. According to the New York Times, a company data scientist told co-workers a week after the election that 10% of all US views of political content were of posts that falsely claimed the vote was fraudulent. But as workers flagged these issues and urged the company to act, the company failed or struggled to address the problems, the Times reported.The internal documents also show Facebook researchers have found the platform’s recommendation tools repeatedly pushed users to extremist groups, prompting internal warnings that some managers and executives ignored, NBC News reported.In one striking internal study, a Facebook researcher created a fake profile for “Carol Smith”, a conservative female user whose interests included Fox News and Donald Trump. The experiment showed that within two days, Facebook’s algorithm was recommending “Carol” join groups dedicated to QAnon, a baseless internet conspiracy theory.The documents also provide a rare glimpse into how the company appears to have simply stumbled into the events of 6 January.It quickly became clear that even after years under the microscope for insufficiently policing its platform, the social network had missed how riot participants spent weeks vowing – by posting on Facebook itself – to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.This story is based in part on disclosures Haugen made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US agency that handles regulation to protect investors in publicly traded companies, provided to Congress in redacted form by her legal counsel.Facebook crisis grows as new whistleblower and leaked documents emergeRead moreThe redacted versions received by Congress were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including the Associated Press.What Facebook called “Break the Glass” emergency measures put in place on 6 January were essentially a toolkit of options designed to stem the spread of dangerous or violent content. The social network had first used the system in the run-up to the bitter 2020 election.As many as 22 of those measures were rolled back at some point after the election, according to an internal spreadsheet analyzing the company’s response.“As soon as the election was over, they turned them back off or they changed the settings back to what they were before, to prioritize growth over safety,” Haugen has said.An internal Facebook report following 6 January, previously reported by BuzzFeed, faulted the company for a “piecemeal” approach to the rapid growth of “Stop the Steal” pages.Facebook said the situation was more nuanced and that it carefully calibrates its controls to react quickly to spikes in hateful and violent content. The company said it was not responsible for the actions of the rioters – and that having stricter controls in place prior to that day wouldn’t have helped.Facebook’s decisions to phase certain safety measures in or out had taken into account signals from the Facebook platform as well as information from law enforcement, said a spokesperson, Dani Lever, saying: “When those signals changed, so did the measures.”Lever added that some of the measures had stayed in place well into February and others remained active today.Meanwhile, Facebook is facing mounting pressure after a new whistleblower on Friday accused it of knowingly hosting hate speech and illegal activity.Allegations by the new whistleblower, who spoke to the Washington Post, were reportedly contained in a complaint to the SEC.In the complaint, which echoes Haugen’s disclosures, the former employee detailed how Facebook officials frequently declined to enforce safety rules for fear of angering Donald Trump and his allies or offsetting the company’s huge growth. In one alleged incident, Tucker Bounds, a Facebook communications official, dismissed concerns about the platform’s role in 2016 election manipulation.“It will be a flash in the pan,” Bounds said, according to the affidavit, as reported by the Post. “Some legislators will get pissy. And then in a few weeks they will move on to something else. Meanwhile, we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine.” TopicsFacebookUS Capitol attackSocial networkingSocial mediaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      How to blow the whistle on Facebook – from someone who already did

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      FacebookHow to blow the whistle on Facebook – from someone who already did This April, Sophie Zhang told the world about her employer’s failure to combat deception and abuse. Her advice? No screenshots, lawyer up – and trust yourselfSophie ZhangMon 11 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 11 Oct 2021 12.05 EDTTwo years ago, I did something I almost never do: I put on a dress. Then I dropped my phone and other electronics off at the home of friends who had agreed to tell anyone who asked that I was at their place the entire time, and headed to the Oakland offices of the Guardian for my first meeting with a reporter. How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower’s accountRead moreLeaving my electronics was a safeguard against possible tracking by my then employer, Facebook. The dress was an additional layer of alibi: I theorized that if anyone from work saw me and could contradict my first alibi, they might conclude that my unusual behavior was evidence of nothing more than an affair.That first, anxious meeting was the beginning of a lengthy process that would culminate in my decision – 18 months later and after I had been fired by Facebook – to step forward and blow the whistle on Facebook’s failure to combat deception and abuse by powerful politicians around the world.This month, another Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, has come forward. After providing the Wall Street Journal and US government with thousands of internal documents showing Facebook’s internal research into its own harms, Haugen testified to Congress. Her testimony and revelations have captured the imaginations of the public, the press and Capitol Hill and raised hopes that regulators might finally act to rein in Facebook’s immense power.During her testimony, Haugen encouraged “more tech employees to come forward through legitimate channels … to make sure that the public has the information they need”. But whistleblowing is never straightforward. When I was deciding whether to speak out, I struggled to find guidance on the best way to go about it. If you’re in that position now, here’s my best advice on how to navigate the complicated path to becoming a whistleblower.Decide what you’re willing to riskWhistleblowing is not for everyone; I knew Facebook employees on H1-B visas who considered speaking, but could not risk being fired and deported. Speaking out internally or anonymously to the press will risk your current job. Speaking out publicly will risk your future career. Providing documentation will risk lawsuits and legal action. These risks can be minimized, but not eliminated. Decide whether you’re going to go publicThe first question you have to ask yourself is whether your aim is to change the minds of employees and leadership, or to pressure them via public opinion? Employees will be more sympathetic to the company than the general public; an internal post denouncing the chief executive as intentionally undermining democracy might alienate your co-workers, but can move the window of discussion. Before I went public, I used Facebook’s internal message board, Workplace, to try to effect change. It was only when this failed that I decided to go to the press.If you do make an internal post, remember that leaks are inevitable, and consider how your words can be misunderstood. When I wrote my departure memo, I naively thought it would not leak, and wrote for an audience of insiders. One of the consequences of this was that a stray comment about “actors” (referring to people who take certain actions) resulted in incorrect reports in the Indian press that Bollywood stars were interfering with elections.Exhaust your internal optionsDon’t let the company claim that they were ignorant of the situation and issues you’re speaking out about, or allege that you had failed to speak to the right people. Even if you expect complaints to be ignored, consider making them nevertheless – in writing – so you can point to them later.Decide what you’re going to saySpeaking out about an area of personal expertise gives you credibility and insight, but narrows your scope to areas that may not arouse as much public interest. Speaking out about topics beyond your normal work will require you to conduct research and seek out internal documents you wouldn’t normally look at – creating a digital trail that could expose you – but could make your story more compelling. Be careful that what you say is correct and you aren’t making assumptions based on any personal bias or opinions; would-be “whistleblowers” have come forward with unconvincing revelations based on preconceptions.Facebook is ‘biased against facts’, says Nobel prize winnerRead moreExpect to face company criticism regardless of what you speak on – Facebook dismissed Haugen for speaking about issues beyond her scope, and attempted the same for myself even though I spoke only about topics I personally worked on.Whatever you speak about, consider what your end goal is and whether your revelations will accomplish that. Risking your career to help a tech reporter live-tweet a company meeting may not be the risk/reward ratio you had in mind.No screenshots, no work devicesNever contact outside parties (such as reporters or lawyers) via work devices; only do so via end-to-end encrypted systems like Signal on your personal devices. To securely copy work documents, use a personal device to take photos of the screen; do not take screenshots. If you’re accessing many documents, ensure that you have a plausible alibi. If leaking while employed, ensure that you’re only sharing documents that many employees have recently accessed. And if you intend to go public, insulate yourself beforehand by removing personal information online with a service like DeleteMe.Save up for a year without payIf you intend to go public with documentation, ensure that you’re able to survive off savings for at least a year. Most would-be-whistleblowers I’ve spoken to are concerned that they won’t be able to find another job. I worried about this too, but I’ve actually received many recruiting attempts – an experience also reported by others. Nevertheless, talking to the press, civil society and government officials is time consuming and will probably prevent you from working for some time. You will likely also incur additional expenses on lawyers and PR advice. Some whistleblowers choose to solicit donations, but this might undermine your credibility.Lawyer upIf you intend to go public with documentation and details, speak with a lawyer first. Organizations such as Whistleblower Aid and the Signals Network can help connect you with someone. By speaking out, you face the risk of lawsuits for breach of contract, or even prosecution in the United States for theft of trade secrets. These risks are unlikely, but the possibility exists nevertheless.Make contact with an outsiderMost tech reporters have a Signal address in their Twitter profile. I’ve heard many employees concerned that reporters will not protect anonymity – I personally have few concerns in that regard, although I would advise working with an established news outlet.When you do speak with a reporter, you should be clear up front about whether you’re speaking on the record (you can be quoted by name), unattributed (you can be quoted but not by name), or off the record (none of this can be published). If you intend to speak with the government, your lawyer should be able to help.It’s your decision – trust yourselfIn the end, whistleblowing is an intensely personal decision that very few will ever consider. It’s easy to criticize from the outside, but many feel differently when they face those risks themselves. Every time I advise others, I remind them that I can provide advice but the ultimate decision is their own. I am glad that I chose to come forward, and that Frances did as well, but no one is obligated to torch their career in pursuit of justice.TopicsFacebookSocial networkingUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More