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Rules, Code, and Whistleblowing
On Facebook’s need for human intervention
As I watched Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s Senate testimony today, I found myself oddly encouraged by the proceedings.
No, it doesn’t make me happy to hear how the people running Facebook have consciously chosen profit over the health and welfare of their users. If Mark Zuckerberg could have somehow been happy with just twenty billion dollars of personal wealth instead of $120 billion, his company could have done a hundred billion dollars less damage to the world. Countless deaths, psychological traumas, political meltdowns, and disinformation could have been avoided, and our vital social justice movements would not have been steered by fake activist organizations down such dangerous ideological dead-ends.
But I am delighted to hear an algorithmic product management expert explain the structural deficits of Facebook’s entire ethos and functional strategy — and to do so in a way that even U.S. senators can understand. Yes, many of us have been making these same arguments for over a decade, but now it’s coming from a manager at Facebook, accompanied by proof that Facebook was fully aware of the precise, documented damage it has been causing all while pretending it had no idea.
