Frances Haugen tours Europe as if she were a star of Rock And Roll. After passing through London, Berlin and Lisbon, it now stops in Brussels, before leaving for Paris. And everywhere this ex-Facebook worker whose revelations have put the great social network of our era on the ropes, repeats a similar message. “I entered the company because I thought that it could bring out the best we have, but I am here because I believe that its products harm children, fuel division and weaken democracy,” he claimed in the European Parliament, where his appearance has awakened a huge expectation and where he has charged against the latest invention of the founder of the company, Mark Zuckerberg. “I am very concerned about the metaverse,” he assured. Haugen’s visit to Brussels coincides with a key moment in the European Parliament, where two legislative acts are negotiated that seek to put an end to what large technology corporations and their algorithms can or cannot do on community territory.
“The current system favors the dissemination of extreme ideas,” Haugen stressed about the way in which the California-based corporation prioritizes information and offers it to its users, causing this diabolical game in which the opposition is “annulled” and one ends up shaken in a kind of airtight resonance box, stuck “in a spiral of ideas that confirm themselves,” as this internet security activist has called it.
The 37-year-old American expert in algorithmic product management has been subjected to intense interrogation by MEPs, after a presentation in which she denounced how the large technology company “puts its huge profits ahead of the people” and prioritizes “ profitability in the face of security ”, which has “serious consequences.” To resolve the conflict, he has demanded that democracies change the laws. “I am glad that the European Union is taking this very seriously,” he said, looking face to face with the deputies who will have to negotiate the new legislation.
The two measures that are currently being debated in various commissions of the community chamber will regulate issues such as the scope of personalized advertisements, the transparency of algorithmic formulas, the recommendation mechanisms of digital platforms and free competition in the digital market. Although a tangible result of the regulations is not expected until 2022, the words and vision of the United States, which has been invited by the Committee on the Internal Market of the European Parliament, will have an impact, above all, on the regulation on digital services (the called Digital Service Act or DSA).
The interest of the parliamentarians in the session has been maximum, with continuous congratulations to the path taken by the engineer and a long round of questions and answers: “How to make them accountable?”, Has asked one about the technological giants. “We would like to do [en la regulación] let Facebook be the one to take steps to mitigate misinformation risks. Do you think it is a good way? ”, Added another. “Who would you give access to that data?” Insisted one more. “How is your algorithm used in foreign interference?”
Haugen has exposed some mechanisms that could contribute to regulate the current internet jungle, such as “neutral” formulas to prioritize information, greater responsibility of the company in the face of “negative content” that it propagates or allowing the regulator greater access to “data company essentials ”. “Now there is not even the possibility of evaluating whether a product is harmful,” he denounced, asking for greater transparency.
He also recalled the parallelism of his current crusade with the war waged decades ago against tobacco companies, when they claimed that the product they were selling had no risks for people. But it was finally proven to be a health threat. “What I did is necessary for the common good,” he said. “But I know that Facebook has many resources to destroy me.”
The technology lobby is currently the most powerful in Brussels, spending around 100 million euros to generate influence in its favor, according to a recent report by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). Facebook, with 5.5 million in spending on lobbying the community institutions, is the second company that spends the most money to ensure its interests in the European capital, behind Google (5.8 million) and ahead of Microsoft ( 5.3 million). On any given day, it is not uncommon to see accredited lobbyists hovering around the headquarters of the European Parliament, exposing to MEPs their vision on the regulation that is to come. “The huge budgets of lobbyists for large technology companies have a significant impact on EU policy makers, who find these groups knocking on their doors regularly,” the CEO study states.
Although the company strongly denies Haugen’s allegations, his former employee’s crusade turned into deep Throat has led Facebook to place itself in front of an uncomfortable mirror. The situation is reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when it was discovered that the company leaked the data of thousands of users, which was intentionally exploited in favor of Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, which elevated him to the presidency of the United States. United. Those events led Zuckerberg to sing the mea culpa in 2018 before the Congress of his country. But this time the reaction has been different. Last week, Zuckerberg fought back with a futuristic film-like presentation in which you capture his ideas for the Facebook of the future: a kind of parallel world in which you can do almost anything virtually, a launch that the company has made. taken advantage of to be renamed Meta in a moment of popularity in low hours.
On the metaverse, Haugen recalled that we are dealing with a company capable of starting up a legion of engineers to develop video games, but not to deal with security problems. To access this new virtual place the user “has to expose a lot”, he added. And it has warned of the risks of “filling the houses and offices with sensors of a company that is not transparent.”
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