Facebook’s toughest week: short circuit with the White House | What does Zuckerberg say about the accusations?

From Washington, DC

“What a week”, published Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook a few days ago. It was only Tuesday, but the company he founded in 2004 has been in the news without interruption since Sunday: a former employee had testified before a sub-committee of Congress and called for greater regulation, the three platforms – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down. during the hours and stocks had fallen. For the government of Joe biden, this is further proof that “self-regulation does not work”.

Haugen’s testimony

Frances Haugen, former product manager at Facebook, worked at Zuckerberg’s company until last May. When he left, he took internal documents which he handed over to the newspaper the Wall Street newspaper and it led to a devastating investigation: Facebook knows that Instagram is harmful to teens and that hateful content is the one that drives the most engagement on platforms.

Last Tuesday, Haugen addressed a US Senate subcommittee as a whistleblower, insisting that internal Facebook investigations suggest Instagram may affect adolescent mental health, particularly among women. He told members of the Trade Sub-Committee that it is necessary to regulate Facebook not only from an ethical point of view, but also used the keywords that the Senate wants to hear: “The continuing understaffing of counterintelligence, intelligence, operations and counterterrorism teams is a matter of national security.

Changes

For the changes, Haugen pointed out the need to change a point known as “Section 230” in the United States. It is part of the Law on Decency in Communication and allows platforms to be released from any responsibility for the content published by their users. Networks, according to Article 230, are not the ones who edit and publish the content. Before the commission, the complainant suggested exempting algorithms. “They are 100% in control of their algorithms” to make “decisions that prioritize viralization and growth over public safety”, noted. Currently, there is a bill in the United States Congress aimed specifically at changing this.

This isn’t the first scandal Facebook has faced and everything points to it not fading easily. The complainant’s statement also sparked the interest of the special committee set up in the House of Representatives to investigate what happened on January 6, when supporters of Donald trump they stormed Congress. “There is a lot of material that has not yet been reported, so there will be more,” Haugen’s lawyer told the Washington Post.

The look of the White House

“This is the latest in a string of social media platform revelations that make it clear that self-regulation does not work,” the White House press secretary said during the week. Jen psaki. He also said it “validates the significant concern” that the US president and members of Congress from both parties already have “over the functioning of the social media giants and the power they have amassed.” The Biden administration has said it will continue to “support fundamental reforms”, but that’s something for Congress to decide.

In public, Facebook also admits that some changes need to be made. One of the commercials that is repeated in the US TV bundles is an advertisement signed by Zuckerberg’s company that states that “The Internet has changed a lot in the past 25 years”, since the last time important legislation for the sector was passed.

The events of the past week have given him an excuse to insist on this request. “I don’t think private companies are the ones who have to make all the decisions on their own. That’s why we’ve been asking for years to update internet regulations, ”Zuckerberg said in his post Tuesday, following Haugen’s testimony. “We are committed to doing the best job possible, but at a certain level the appropriate body to assess the balance between social equity is our democratically elected Congress. For example, what is the correct age to use Internet services as a teenager? How should Internet services verify the ages of people? “, he added.

Facebook calls for “clear guidelines”

For Facebook, it is necessary to define “clear guidelines” for the “most difficult challenges” of today. Thus, he claims to support a regulation that establishes a series of standards for transparency in political announcements and rules to fight against foreign interference during an election period. He also says he is in favor of updating the regulations on data protection, portability and Article 230, “Ensure that technology companies respond to the fight against child exploitation, opioid abuse and other types of illegal activity”.

It says very little about one of the main criticisms leveled at the company, which manifested itself with the fall of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp last Monday: the complaints of monopoly practices.

On the same day that Facebook’s platforms were taken out of service around the world, the company appeared in U.S. justice asking it to dismiss a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the government agency responsible for promoting free competition in the North American country.

Monopoly?

At the end of 2020, the FTC denounced Facebook claiming that the company “illegally maintains its monopoly on social media” through “anti-competitive behavior”. In this presentation, the US agency claimed that Facebook follows a “Systematic strategy”, which included the purchase of Instagram in 2012 and the acquisition of WhatsApp two years later.

Last June, a judge said the FTC had not presented Facebook as a monopoly, but had given it the option to amend the complaint in August. In your response last week, Facebook says the agency has no evidence the company is breaking any laws nor harm its rivals with its dominant position. Justice still has until mid-November to decide whether or not to accept the complaint.