![]() The news that social media can harm teens’ mental health was not surprising to many experts and parents. 32% of teen girls who had felt bad about their bodies felt even worse.17% of teen girls experienced the worsening of an eating disorder.13.5% of teen girls in the United Kingdom had more frequent suicidal thoughts.Some of Facebook’s key findings from those studies showed the following effects of Instagram use on teens: This included the sharing of misinformation on its site as well as data the company had collected in its own studies on the impact of social media on teens. The Facebook Papers revealed internal data that Facebook had never before made public. Facebook disputes Haugen’s characterization, claiming that the team was scattered across the country to increase its influence rather than disbanded.Īfter these changes to her team, Haugen began preparing for her next steps. ![]() ![]() At that time, she claims, Facebook dissolved her team working on civic integrity. In December 2020, Haugen became resolved to blow the whistle on what was happening at Facebook. She claimed that Facebook did not invest in resources that could have helped her mission. Indeed, Haugen said that her team of employees charged with combating misinformation were inexperienced, and Facebook failed to adopt employee recommendations that could have helped decrease the spread of misinformation. Haugen considered Facebook to be prioritizing its profits over its social responsibility. The more that the misinformation riled up Facebook users, the more they engaged with the content. She believed that the company often claimed to be working hard to stop the spread of misinformation but that the psychological effects of misinformation actually increased the company’s profits. Unfortunately, she became discouraged about her work at Facebook. Making sure that there is someone that can coach them through the process is vitally important."įacebook reported profits of $9 billion in the July-September quarter of the year.Haugen eventually accepted a position as a product manager in Facebook’s civics integrity division. "Most whistleblowers don't have that level of support. "My mother is a priest and I received countless hours of counselling and therapy," she said. "Providing psychological support is critical for many whistleblowers," she said, adding that she had been lucky to move back to live with her mother last year because of Covid-19 lockdowns. Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist, also told the French parliament about how she had coped with the scrutiny and public exposure since identifying herself in early October as the main source of a series of explosive reports by the Wall Street Journal. Zuckerberg has hit back, saying that "the argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical". The former Facebook engineer leaked a trove of internal documents to the media that have sparked weeks of criticism of the social media giant over its impact on fragile democracies and vulnerable teens.ĭuring her testimony to American and European lawmakers over the last month, she has insisted that Facebook chooses profit over curtailing toxic content and that the company cannot be trusted to change its ways. "You don't get to decide if Facebook can spy on you like you can opt out from using Facebook in your personal life," she added. "Let's imagine you work from home and your employer decides 'I want to be a metaverse company'," she told lawmakers.
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