By Paul Sandle and Kate Holton
LONDON (Reuters) – Facebook has seen fomenting more violent acts around the world because of the way its algorithms are designed to promote content, whistleblower Frances Haugen told the British Parliament on Monday.
Haugen, a former director of Facebook, attended a British Parliament hearing evaluating plans to regulate social media companies.
She said Facebook regards security as a cost center and that it advocates a culture of shortcuts and that it has “unquestionably” made hate worse.
“The events we’re seeing around the world, things like Myanmar and Ethiopia…engagement-based ranking does two things: one, it prioritizes and amplifies divisions and polarizes extreme content, and two, it concentrates that,” she said.
Facebook did not comment on the matter.
Haugen told the US Senate trade subcommittee this month that Facebook devised ways to keep users inside its page, even if it went against its well-being, putting profits before users.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-congress-facebook-idCNL1N2R10Y1 this month rebutted Haugen’s allegations, saying that “the argument that we deliberately promote content makes it nervous people to make a profit is profoundly illogical.”
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