AUTHOR: IRIS LEACH DOWE
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, has hit widespread media coverage recently for her statements about the company’s harmful algorithms.
Haugen is a whistle-blower against Facebook, a multinational company that runs popular platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp. She spoke in front of the US Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection last week in attempts to inform the general public.
Haugen describes Facebook Inc. as a company that prioritises profit over safety; she said on CBS News, “the thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.”
Haugen was formerly a product manager in the Facebook civic integrity department before Facebook removed it in 2020, despite complaints regarding the declining mental health of those who use Facebook’s platforms.
She says that the company knows that they have harmed vulnerable people, from children who are susceptible to feel bad about their bodies on Instagram, to adults being fed misinformation on Facebook.
Her research into the Instagram user algorithm has proven that the platform intentionally steers teenagers into anorexic-related content. “The platform is designed to exploit negative emotions to keep people on the platform,” she said in an interview.
But of course, our voices are important to be heard regarding this social media issue that directly impacts us. Teenagers all over the world are responding to Haugen’s statements; in the Guardian Claire Turney, an 18-year-old in her first year at university, said “The fact that Facebook knows is important… that they know that it is destructive, and they continue to market it to teenage girls is a little messy in my opinion.”
Recent research in the UK has found that two in five girls aged between 11 and 16 (40%) say images they see online make them feel insecure, this number only increases in the age group between 17 and 21 where 50% agreed that photos online negatively impacted their body image. This number could continue to grow in the future as Facebook Inc’s algorithm continues to grow smarter, and perhaps even more malicious.