“I don’t think any company wants to be seen as unsafe,it’s not good for business. I just wish they would see what kind of return of investment they could get if they invested more in safety.”
In more than three hours of testimony to the US Senate’s Commerce Committee,Ms Haugen savaged the operations of her former employer,and claimed its leadership was aware of the harm it was causing to users,saying “Facebook’s products harm children,stoke division and weaken our democracy”.
“The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer,but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people,” she said.
Her testimony,which was informed by thousands of internal documents she had compiled before leaving the company in May after almost two years,has intensified calls for Congress to regulate the tech giant. It prompted chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to respond in a blog post that it was “difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives”.
Asked about Haugen’s testimony at the Press Club on Wednesday,Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said he was not surprised by the reaction to the revelations,and there had been a “maturing of expectations” within the broader community about safety standards expected from the tech sector.
“I have to say,without commenting on the detailed allegations,it is not greatly surprising to me,given that with just about every change that we have sought to make in our time in government there has been resistance from the tech giants.”