Facebook documents have been leaked over the last several weeks by a former Facebook product manager, Frances Haugen. She disclosed them to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Haugen claims that the mass number of statements and data proves that Facebook’s leaders had repeatedly and intentionally put the company’s profitability and image above the public good, and even at the risk of violence and possibly other harm.
According to TIME, the employee who wrote the “Alien Chess” memo said: “In my time I’ve experienced the company grows 160 [times], people coming and going, infinite reorgs, failed projects, tech shifts, criticism, regulation, societal issues.”
Some employees are not happy with the “Alien Chess” memo. From Haugen’s disclosures, employees complained about internal posts, along with some comments about their thoughts on Facebook’s integrity teams.
Haugen also leaked a study done by Facebook that showed that 13.5% of British teen girls had suicidal thoughts after joining Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
After the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and how Facebook tried to diminish the hostility and conspiracy theories shared by Trump voters, there has been more debate about Facebook and its policies.
According to NPR, one employee said on an internal message board “We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now out of control.”
The review of the documents found that younger people find Facebook’s content dull, deceptive, and negative. Over this last decade, Facebook’s demographic has changed from young college kids to older adults and senior citizens.
Since 2018, Facebook knew that there were sex traffickers using the platform. Some of the efforts by Facebook to stop this and protect the victims are being questioned because Facebook could have benefitted financially from human trafficking.
Another revelation of the documents was that Facebook has a different set of standards for high profile accounts like celebrities, the president, and many others.
The list of questionable things that the leaked Facebook papers have stated goes on and on, which shows how big of an issue this is. These revelations came from tens of thousands of pages of internal company documents.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, announced that the overall company will be reconstructed as “Meta.” This is meant to show that the company is growing and expanding into the metaverse. The metaverse is a world of endless interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work, and play.
Nick Thomas
Intern