The ground shook at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in mid-September 2021. The Wall Street Journal published for several days the calls Facebook Files, a journalistic investigation based on internal documents of the technology company in which it was demonstrated that its executives were aware of the damage that Instagram and Facebook caused among young people. The company’s responsibility in the dissemination of false news and content that encouraged violence was also proven.
A month later, in October, the world put a face to the person responsible for that leak. Engineer Frances Haugen (Iowa City, 39 years old) decided to reveal her identity and told in a television interview who had left his position at Facebook with 21,000 internal documents under his arm. The US Senate called her to testify and investigations were launched into her revelations about Meta, the name that Mark Zuckerberg’s company became weeks after the leak. It didn’t take long for the first lawsuits to arrive from parents of teenagers who had suffered mental disorders, eating disorders or even suicide, many of which ended up being part of the class action lawsuit filed in March by hundreds of individuals and dozens of educational institutions against various social networks. . The peak of this wave of lawsuits came last week, when attorneys general from 41 states sued Meta for harming children with its products and failing to report those dangers.
Haugen does not hide his emotion about what happened. “This is a truly historic moment,” he says smiling to EL PAÍS via videoconference. Since she left Facebook, the American has given lectures around the world and founded an NGO, Beyond the Screenwhich aims to make social networks more transparent.
Ask. How did you feel last Tuesday, when the lawsuit was filed?
Answer. In the United States, there is not much consensus between Democrats and Republicans. For 41 States to come together and demand accountability from a company is something very big. And it shows that they have solid evidence against her. Otherwise, they wouldn’t take that step. This case is not about Facebook harming children, but about Facebook harming children and lying about it. The cover-up is often worse than the crime. Some say that Section 230 [de la Communications Decency Act de 1996, que exime a las plataformas, salvo contadas excepciones, de la responsabilidad de los contenidos publicados en ellas por terceros] It means that these companies can do whatever they want. I don’t know if that’s totally true. But what I do know is that consumer protection laws say you can’t describe your product one way when you know it’s different. One of the incredible things that will happen in the coming weeks is that we will know the full version of the text of the lawsuit [hay muchos extractos que son secreto de sumario]. That will change everything, because I’m sure they are extracts from subpoena documents. As soon as we can see what Facebook’s own documents say in detail about mental health with children, I think it will really profoundly change the conversation around social media and children.
Q. There is more deep throats in this case?
R. Well, other people are named in the lawsuit with their names hidden. So we know that there are others who talk about Facebook. We also know that the lawsuit is based on documents that were not mine. I only brought to light a handful of documents about children; my main focus was linguistic equity. There are hundreds of millions of Spanish speakers around the world. Facebook does not invest as much in the security of its Spanish version as in the English one. I still revealed 30 or 40 documents focused on children. What happens when instead of seeing 30 or 40 we have 1,000 or 4,000? I am very excited to see what the world will learn from these reports.
Q. Have you cooperated with any of the attorneys general who filed the lawsuit?
R. No comment.
Q. Do you know or have you dealt with any of the informants who have leaked more documents to build the case?
R. I can’t comment on that either, sorry.
Q. How do you expect this process to end?
R. That’s a great question. I think it’s hard to imagine how much the world has changed in the last week. Teenagers have an incredible sense of injustice, they really don’t like being taken advantage of. The text of the lawsuit makes clear that Facebook did not prioritize the well-being of children. So, even if Facebook manages to emerge well from the trial, this document is going to change everything. We now know what social media has done to children. Something will happen, if only that consumers leave or advertisers decide to stop putting money into it.
“My main motivation for doing the leak was to be able to sleep at night.”
Q. When you decided to leave Facebook and leak internal documents, was your goal to get to the point we are at now? What did you imagine would happen?
R. I had incredibly low expectations when I took that step. My main motivation was to be able to sleep at night. He knew that he was no longer responsible for what was being done, that he was no longer part of the problem. And everything that has happened since then is fantastic. The fact that this lawsuit was filed is. I have always believed that the judicial route was the only way for us to move forward. This is what happened with tobacco and opioids. I am a Quaker, I really believe in the power of truth.
Q. What do you expect from the class action lawsuit filed in March by educational institutions?
R. I find it very interesting. And more and more educational districts are joining. I had no idea how much social media has disrupted schools until I started promoting the cause. I spoke with school directors and they say things like what students spend the most time doing is social media. The director of the institute where I studied told me that the boys have set up a fight club: there is an anonymous Instagram account from which the children arrange fights and where they then upload the recordings. This is deeply disturbing. There are schools in the US where they have to confiscate cell phones because, if not, they cannot teach.
Q. Have you received threats since you left Facebook?
R. No. I have direct messages open on Twitter and my email addresses on my website and no one has ever bothered me. For Facebook, it is as if it does not exist. I’m like Voldemort, my name can’t be said. I feel very lucky, really. I think if I had gone after Twitter, things would be different. Elon Musk has a lot of fanboys who probably would have harassed me. But very few people support Mark Zuckerberg. I think he’s pretty sad. He is very, very alone.
Q. Have you ever met Zuckerberg since he left Facebook?
R. No.
Q. Would you like to be able to talk to him?
R. Yes. I feel like I’m the only person in the world who believes he can do much better. If I write another book [publicó en mayo sus memorias] one day, my dedication will be the following: “I want to dedicate it to Mark Zuckerberg and be like him. “I have complete faith that you are destined for greatness, and I will not stop pushing until you achieve it.” He needs to retire and do something else. He has infinite money, he is a young man, 39 years old… Imagine what he could do. He could surpass Bill Gates, he has a lot of time ahead of him to achieve it [siempre se ha dicho que Zuckerberg envidia el concepto que la gente tiene del fundador de Microsoft]. And yet, he is trapped in this prison that he built for himself. I think he is scared and alone. I’d love to give you a pep talk. Tell him: you can do more, keep going and reach your destiny.
Even if Meta manages to get out of the trial well, the lawsuit is going to change everything”
Q. When did you realize you had to leave Facebook?
R. When I became part of a team called Civic Integrity. It was the department that was created after the 2016 elections [los datos de 87 millones de usuarios de Facebook recogidos por Cambridge Analytica podrían haber contribuido a la victoria de Donald Trump] to ensure Facebook was a positive force in the world. Well, they dissolved it less than 30 days after the 2020 elections. There was no one to say: January 6 [fecha de recuento del voto electoral en la que fue asaltado el Capitolio] is coming, we have to prepare a war room. Seeing that, it seemed clear to me that the company was not going to be able to heal itself. I needed public help. That’s when I thought I had to do something.
Q. What do you think of TikTok, the fastest growing social network among young people? Is she as dangerous as Meta?
R. It has very similar problems. TikTok is designed to be moderated. The reason they generate such viral content is that they want there to be a small number of videos that represent 80% or 90% of what everyone sees. The problem with a system like that is that if you don’t have enough moderating staff, dangers arise. The bias or discrimination that the algorithm can cause is even more pronounced. When I left Facebook, I thought we had five years before TikTok caused violence. Well, last year, during the elections in Kenya, we saw the first cases of violence caused by TikTok. I spoke to someone on that social network and he told me that at that time there were no moderators who spoke Swahili. If you decide not to invest in languages, beyond the most used ones, you are putting the entire world in danger. So, without a doubt, TikTok has similar problematic behaviors to Meta, we just don’t have proof of it yet.
Q. How do you see social networks in 10 years?
R. I think that in 10 years we will look back and be surprised by everything that has happened. We are already starting to see college sophomores giving testimonies about what they have seen on social media. One thing that has surprised teachers and educators is that there are many angry children for no apparent reason. There are also many who have colleagues who have committed suicide. We are going to have to face the fact that this generation is the most affected by social media, and they will let us know the consequences it has had on them. When we look back in 10 years, we will wonder why we couldn’t move faster on regulation.
Q. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
R. I hope I’m unnecessary. I am confident that by then we will have sensible laws that give access to the data on these platforms, that we will have a robust democratic system in which no more Frances Haugens are needed to function.
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