The impact of social media on the mental health of children is not hidden. The whistleblowers in Facebook have testified about shocking revelations against the social media giant a day before Facebook, and its associated platforms faced a global outage.
The outage has reportedly leaked the data of more than 1.5 billion users, which is now being sold worldwide on the dark web.
Whistleblower in Action: Facebook is Busy Mending Its Public Relations
The former product manager in Facebook’s civic integrity team, Frances Haugen, exploded the news that despite knowing the harmful consequences of its policies, Facebook failed to take any meaningful action, which is causing a toll on the mental health of the users.
“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.”
(Frances Haugen)
Damaging the mental health of the masses is not the only allegation which Haugen labeled against Facebook.
In fact, she also claimed that Facebook relaxed its standards, which encouraged people to spread misinformation post-2020, despite the company’s claims that it played no role in the January 6 riots.
Facebook knows the importance of these leaks. Since the whistleblower surfaced, Facebook has halted its plans of developing a kids version of Instagram, which the company was pursuing, and launched a public relations campaign to mend the declining reputation of the company.
The woman whistleblower was also involved in the recent leaks named The Facebook Files, which the Wall Street Journal broke.
The problem with Facebook started in 2018 after the change in their algorithm, as per the whistleblower, who claimed that it encouraged the platform to have more control over the content that they want to show to the users.
However, the pinnacle of this drama came in the post-2020 election campaign, when Facebook wrapped up the civic integrity team, which was acting as a wall against the misinformation regimes.
At this point, Facebook stopped discriminating about what is right and what is not.
Based on these revelations, Facebook recognizes the hate which it creates among the users from its platform and the political unrest which it perpetrates. However, the platform did not unveil these things to its users, which amplifies the issue.
Similarly, Facebook is hiding crucial information from its investors, which is not giving a transparent picture to the stakeholders.
Instagram, one of the platforms of Facebook, continuously yields drastic consequences to teen girls, which takes a toll on their mental health.
The platform is directly involved in instigating genocide in the world right now, the apparent example of which is disastrous to minorities worldwide.
The whistleblower claimed that Facebook is “tearing societies apart.”
Similarly, Facebook is also involved in enhancing political polarization in the country, which led to the capitol riots as per the leaks.
Demands to Tighten Curbs on Facebook Will Just Increase With Time
The issue of regulating Facebook and its associated platform is not new. The platform often comes under scrutiny from the political leadership of the country.
The discussion of Section 230 is also not new. Now, when the social media giants are looking to introduce social crediting systems, they are claiming to counter extremism and fake news from their platforms.
However, the initiative does not seem to be as passionate as Facebook preached after these leaks, as Facebook and its associated platforms are putting profit over integrity.
Will Facebook disown troubling people, or will it continues serving them for its monetary gain? Only time will tell.
Final Thoughts
Facebook is dominating the global headlines, and for all the wrong reasons. The syncing of the timing of the leaks and the Facebook shutdown also gave a crucial blow to the company, as its owner lost more than $7 billion in a seven-hour extended shutdown.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.