The time for storms seems to have come for Facebook. Let’s face it: the new scandal hitting the world’s sixth market capitalization head-on, called the “Facebook files”, is possibly the most devastating to date for Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire. After the Wall Street Journal survey published last month, these explosive revelations were confirmed, Sunday evening, by the whistleblower herself, Frances Haugen.
In an interview given to the 60 Minutes show (see below), the 37-year-old data scientist emerged from her anonymity. In all, the former employee – from mid 2019 to mid-2021 – leaked tens of thousands of pages of internal reports. Not only to the Wall Street Journal, but also to US regulators. A sign that the trouble is only just beginning for Facebook, she has also filed a complaint with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), that is to say the regulator of financial markets, because these documents show according to her that Facebook lied to its investors. Regulators do not seem to appreciate these revelations very much either: the US Senate, already very critical of GAFA, auditioned Frances Haugen on Tuesday, October 5. And the whistleblower will also be received by the European Commission in November.
[La lanceuse d’alerte Frances Haugen a dévoilé son identité et les raisons qui l’ont poussée à faire fuiter des dizaines de milliers de pages de rapports internes accablants, dans l’émission 60 Minutes, diffusée ce dimanche soir sur la chaîne américaine CBS]
“Betrayal of democracy” and manipulation of the algorithm to anger users
The revelations of the “Facebook files” are extremely serious. “The way Facebook deliberately works today is tearing our societies apart and causing nothing but violence all over the world“, denounces Frances Haugen in her interview for 60 Minutes.
Internal documents reveal that Facebook is keenly aware of the serious negative impacts of its social networks (Facebook and Instagram) and messaging services (Messenger and WhatsApp) on democracy around the world, but is deliberately choosing to ignore them, if not takes decisions that have the consequence of amplifying them, to favor its race for profit. Spread of hate online, polarization of political discourse, disinformation, but also the impact of Instagram on self-esteem and mental health of teenage girls: the rulership of the empire with 2.8 billion monthly active users , that is to say 60% of the world population which has access to Internet, is regularly informed, via numerous reports of its own research teams, on these subjects.
Worse: according to the Wall Street Journal and Frances Haugen, internal documents above all reveal that Facebook is doing the minimum to reduce these negative impacts, in particular online hatred and disinformation, and that it would have the technological means to do much better . But he refuses to do so because his internal research has shown that a “change of algorithm leads users to spend less time on the platform, to interact less, and therefore to click less on advertisements“, which is the heart of its business model.
“Facebook knows that the more people are exposed to content that causes anger in them, the more time they spend on Facebook, the more they interact with each other, the more exposure they are to ads, and the more money Facebook makes.” denounces Frances Haugen on the basis of internal studies.
A correlation already established by outside researchers, who believe that it is disinformation and hateful content that are the most “profitable” for Facebook.
The modification of the algorithm – which decides what appears on your news feed – decided on the occasion of the presidential election of 2020 in the United States is, according to the whistleblower, a striking proof of the lack of ethics of Facebook. Traumatized by the 2016 election fiasco -which led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal- “Facebook understood the danger of the 2020 election and activated security systems to reduce disinformation “, explains Frances Haugen. Problem : “many of these changes were only temporary. They backtracked by shutting down those security mechanisms as soon as the election was over, and that’s a betrayal of democracy for me.“, deplores the whistleblower.
The data scientist also regrets the closure, after the victory of Joe Biden, of the Civic Integrity division, in which she worked and whose mission was to control disinformation related to the elections. Two decisions that she considers serious consequences, especially since another internal report would show that the Capitol uprising of January 6, 2021, which caused four deaths, was actively prepared on Facebook.
Conflict of interest between Facebook’s business model and the smooth running of the world
In the background, the “Facebook files” reveal the conflict of interest between, on the one hand, Facebook’s business model based on user engagement and targeted advertising, and, on the other, nothing less than the good walk of the world. And this is not an exaggeration. Here, a report detailing Facebook’s role in organizing the repression of Uyghurs. There, his role in the repression in Burma following the military coup. Another study shows that 13.5% of American teenage girls say Instagram amplifies thoughts of suicide, and 17% of them think it amplifies eating disorders.
Another telling example: this report which explains that the global change of algorithm implemented in 2018 pushed politicians in Europe to accentuate the ideological differences between the parties and to radicalize their positions to win the battle for attention on the parties. social networks. In other words, Facebook’s algorithm, which “simply” aims to promote user engagement, ultimately leads to the polarization of the political debate around the most extreme ideas, and, ultimately, to the disintegration of the social fabric. in Western democracies.
This 2018 algorithm change is also the subject of several alarmist publications by Facebook researchers. One of them indicates that, while the official goal was to improve interactions between users, the results show that it happened exactly the opposite. The files also indicate that Facebook is both the problem and the solution: it alone has such a deep understanding of the dysfunctions of its social networks, and it alone has the technological means to reduce them much more drastically. Corn “he chooses not to do it“, denounces France Haugen, who decided to” leaker “these documents for”show everything” so that “no one doubts that this is the reality of what is happening at Facebook“.
“Every day there was a conflict of interest between what is good for the public and what is good for Facebook. And every day, Facebook chose to optimize what was good for it, to always earn more money. ‘money”.
Long-term impacts for Facebook?
For Nick Clegg, Facebook’s director of public affairs, Facebook allows “to the best and the worst of humanity to be visible on our platforms, our job is to limit the worst and amplify the best“, he declared on CNN. In its response to the Wall Street Journal, the social network seeks to take its responsibility away.”If studies had shown that there is a miracle cure for these very complex problems, then the tech industry, states and society would have applied them long ago.“.
But the “Facebook files” suggest that there is a margin between the miracle cure and what Facebook actually does. ahe internal study shows that only 3% to 5% of hateful content posted on the platform is moderate, which has prompted internal researchers to call for new rules to be able to deal with content that is problematic but does not fall under the control. coup of the terms of use. In addition, another study shows that only 0.6% of violent or inciting violence messages are deleted.
The impact of the Facebook Files could therefore prove to be much more devastating for Facebook than Cambridge Analytica in 2018. Already in the sights of regulators for its practices in terms of advertising, personal data management and impact on democracy, the network social is definitely entering a period of great turbulence. The left wing of the Democrats is calling for its dismantling, and regulatory proposals are emerging on both sides of the Atlantic to better frame its economic model, targeted advertising, the original sin source of all the dysfunctions of the company.
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