Facebook is facing its "worst crisis ever," battling a barrage of "bad news" and lacking defenders in congressional hearings about internal leaks from former employees, according to Politico.
The company is still searching for answers to questions from former Facebook chief Frances Hogan, who has participated in sessions in Britain's Congress and Parliament, backed by a "stock of leaked documents that raise questions."
These questions center around "the company's handling of hate speech, political disinformation, and other social problems." There are tens of thousands of documents that "deal with every aspect of Facebook's business" and could lead to legal action against the company, according to the magazine.
Months after the US elections that led Democrat Joe Biden to the White House, internal Facebook documents showed that employees of the social media giant had warned before the election of the spread of misinformation on the platform.
A report from the New York Times, which obtained the documents and published their content, said employees reported accounts promoting conspiracy theories.
"There is a lot to look for in these papers about how Facebook is promoting extremism and hurting our communities," said Amy Klobuchar, D-Democrat, chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee.
"I am deeply concerned about Facebook's actions that threaten democracy, spread misinformation and put young people's health at risk," said Representative Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
Lofgren expressed concern that the House bills "do not address some of these issues, such as privacy, data breaches, the spread of misinformation, extremist content, and cybersecurity," noting that they support the creation of a new regulatory agency to oversee digital platforms.
Facebook Sheets
Since last Friday, 17 US media organizations have begun publishing a series of reports under the name "Facebook Papers", which contain hundreds of documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress by the legal counsel of former Facebook employee Frances Hogan.
These papers accuse Facebook of fomenting sedition and violence, especially with regard to the events of the storming of Congress on January 6, in addition to Facebook's challenges in managing content in some non-English-speaking countries, and how some used Facebook platforms to exploit people, according to CNN.
In London, Hogan said in a speech during a session before a committee in the British Parliament, on Monday, that "when Facebook managers see a conflict of interest between profits and people, they continue to choose profits."
In this session, Hogan called for "urgent action" to reduce the harm Facebook is doing to society, and her statements provided "qualified support" for the UK government's proposals to regulate social media and make it take some responsibility for the content on its sites, according to the newspaper "The Guardian".
She stressed that "the company's internal culture prioritized profit" at the expense of users, and that the senior management "is concerned with the interests of shareholders and not the public interest."
She warned that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook and used by millions of children around the world, may not be safe at all for pre-teens, noting that Facebook "can lead people away from their true communities, and isolate them from their surroundings," and that " Misinformation makes it difficult to show the facts."
And she added that there was research conducted by the company that found that Instagram was "more dangerous than other social media such as TikTok and Snapchat", because it focuses on "comparing the shape of bodies, and people's lifestyles."
Hogan urged Facebook to make sharing posts more difficult, "in order to slow the spread of hate and disinformation," as she put it.
She explained that several events, such as the congressional riots last January, and the events in Myanmar and Ethiopia, are "opening chapters" for worse events, if action is not taken against Facebook, according to the newspaper "The Independent".
Hogan's testimony before the committee's members of Parliament comes at a time when a number of files have been shared with a variety of media, including internal research by the company. Facebook appeared to be missing "classifiers of disinformation" in Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan and Ethiopia.
The newspaper pointed to an earlier report, which revealed that Facebook "failed to prevent the use of its platform to incite violence" in Myanmar, and the report said that the Facebook platform had created an "enabling environment" for the spread of human rights violations, which culminated in violence against the Rohingya.
facebook reply
In early October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to accusations made by Hogan about the network's dealing with children and adolescents and "nourishing" violence.
"(The accusations) do not reflect the company we know... Many of the allegations are meaningless... We care deeply about safety, wellbeing and mental health issues. It's hard to see press coverage distorting our work and our motivations," Zuckerberg said in a post on his website.
He also denied giving priority to profit at the expense of the safety and well-being of users, evidenced by the amendment made to the way topics are presented to users on Facebook, although it may lead to users spending less time on the site, according to his expression.
Zuckerberg also refused to promote "angry" content for profit, saying the company makes money from ads and advertisers, who refuse to display their ads in this type of content.
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