The complainant also warns of the development of “metaverse”, the parallel digital universe in which Facebook wants to embark the population.
Former Facebook employee and whistleblower, Frances Haugen, said she wants to dedicate herself to educating young people in the use of social networks, in an interview with AFP, at the end of a tour of several European capitals.
“I want to continue fighting” for Facebook to modify its practices of hyper-amplification of harmful content, explains the American whistleblower in a large Parisian hotel on the eve of her trip back to the United States.
“I want to do a college tour in the first quarter” and “give young people tools” to be aware of the dangerous effects of social media, says Haugen.
After slamming the door on Facebook in May, it gradually leaked thousands of internal documents collected from the technology giant, which it accuses of not protecting its users.
Facebook whistleblower will ask US lawmakers for regulation of the company.
Suddenly, he jumped onto the public scene in the fall with strong, high-profile testimony in the US Congress against his former company.
Frances Haugen, a mathematician and data specialist, now wants to build a “consortium” of independent researchers and specialists to create simulators of social networks in laboratories that allow experimenting with the virality of content.
Thus it could be seen “how we can stop the dissemination of harmful content on the Internet,” he explains.
Economic independence
His fight against Facebook is “long term.” “It may take two years, maybe five” for the social network to be held accountable, he says.
The young engineer, surrounded by a team of communication consultants, achieved financial independence thanks to a series of successful financial investments.
“I saw the Covid crisis arrive. I am a specialist in data and networks, I saw that the crisis was going to be serious and I bought short-term declining shares ”in the stock market“ just before ”its fall, he explains.
A part of the profits were reinvested in cryptocurrencies. “Even if I don’t go back to a salaried job, I can use math and probably make a living just off the markets,” he says.
Haugen’s combat isn’t fine-tuning Facebook’s moderation techniques or trying to better discern good and bad content. It is about putting an end to the hyper-amplification of content, forcing the giant to reveal its data on the matter.
Former Facebook employee reveals some secrets of the social network
“If Facebook is obliged to show what is not working, then it will be obliged to make changes,” he insists. For her, the social network must return to a human scale and make it difficult, for example, to broadcast content to infinity.
Forcing a user to make a voluntary gesture, such as cut-paste, to redistribute content “could have as much effect on disinformation as the entire information verification program” of the platform.
It could also complicate the formation of subscriber groups, he says.
“Take a group of a million or five million people who produce 1,000 content every day. If the algorithm has to choose three of these contents to spread them in current threads, they will usually be the most extreme “because they are the ones that provoke the most reactions, he assures.
The complainant also warns of the development of “metaverse”, the parallel digital universe in which Facebook wants to embark the population.
If people spend their time in a virtual universe where they have “better clothes, a more elegant haircut and a prettier appearance” than in reality, what effect will it have on their mental health? He wonders.
“It is not in five years that you have to ask this question, it is in three months,” warns the enemy number one of Facebook. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
