The whistleblower who plunged Facebook into the crisis | New

On Monday, Facebook and its affiliates Instagram and WhatsApp shut down after a router failure. There have been thousands of negative headlines, millions of complaints, and over 3 billion users have been forced to log out. Tuesday’s corporate week deteriorated dramatically.

Frances Haugen, former product manager at Facebook, testified before U.S. Senators about what she saw during her two years there – and explained why she decided to leak a trove of internal Wall Street documents Newspaper. Haugen had been revealed to be the source of the leak a few days earlier. And while the content of the leak – from internal warnings about Instagram’s damage to teens to the deal Facebook is offering celebrities to let their content go unrestrained – had already led to a debate about the need for corporate reform. , Haugen’s decision to come forward has intensified the pressure on Mark Zuckerberg.

In this episode, Nosheeen Iqbal speaks with the Guardian’s global tech editor, Dan Milmo, on what we learned from Haugen’s testimony and how damaging a week it could be for Facebook. Milmo exposes the challenges the company faces as it seeks to argue that the whistleblower is misinformed or their criticism is wrong. And he reflects on the options politicians and regulators around the world will consider when looking for ways to reduce Facebook’s power, and how successful those measures are.

After Haugen’s intervention, Zuckerberg said his claims that the company put profit before the safety of people were “just not true.” In a blog post, he added, “The argument that we deliberately deliver content that angers people for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads, and advertisers constantly tell us that they don’t want their ads to be next to harmful or angry content. You can read more about Zuckerberg’s defense here. And you can read an analysis of how Haugen’s testimony is likely to affect Congress’ next move here.

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