Facebook is unquestionably making hate worse, warns whistleblower

FACEBOOK is ‘unquestionably’ making online hate worse because it is programmed to prioritise extreme content, a whistleblower said yesterday.

Frances Haugen told MPs and peers that bosses at the social network were guilty of ‘negligence’ in not accepting how the workings of their algorithm were damaging society.

The American data scientist claimed the tech giant was ‘subsidising hate’ because its business model made it cheaper to run angry and divisive adverts. Miss Haugen said there was ‘no doubt’ the platform’s systems would drive more violent events, such as January’s storming of the US Capitol, because its most extreme content is targeted at the most impressionable people.

She also issued a stark warning to parents that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, may never be safe for schoolchildren as its own research found it turned them into addicts. Despite knowing it allowed ‘bullying to follow children home’ to their bedrooms, the company did not want to act because it needed to get them ‘hooked’ for the future of the platform.

Miss Haugen told the joint committee on the draft Online Safety Bill that it was a ‘critical moment for the UK to stand up’ and improve social media. The Bill will impose a duty of care on social media companies to protect users from harmful content and give watchdog Ofcom the power to fine them up to 10 per cent of their global turnover.

Facebook is currently battling a crisis after Miss Haugen, a former product manager at the company, leaked thousands of internal documents that revealed its inner workings.

Its founder Mark Zuckerberg has previously rejected her claims, saying her attacks on the company were ‘misrepresenting’ the work it does.

Yesterday the committee highlighted how the tech giant had previously claimed it removes 97 per cent of hateful posts on the platform.

But leaked research showed its own staff estimated that it only took down posts that generated around 3 to 5 per cent of hate speech and 0.6 per cent of content that breached its rules on violence and incitement.

Asked about hate speech, Miss Haugen said: ‘Unquestionably it is making hate worse.’ She said Facebook was ‘very good at dancing with data’ to make it seem as though it was on top of the problem but was reluctant to sacrifice even a ‘slither of profit’ to make the platform safer.

The committee also heard how Facebook’s research found that 10 to 15 per cent of ten-year-olds were on the platform – despite the minimum age being 13.

Lord Black of Brentwood noted that the Bill exempts legitimate news publishers from its scope, but that there is no obligation for Facebook and other platforms to carry such journalism as they would have to observe the codes of the regulator.

AI would effectively be making these decisions, he said, and asked if Miss Haugen trusted AI to make these types of judgment. Miss Haugen said the Bill should not treat a ‘random blogger’ the same way as a recognised news source as this would dilute users’ access to high quality news on the platform.

She said: ‘I’m very concerned that if you just exempted across the board you will make the regulations ineffective.’ She further warned that ‘any system where the solution is AI is a system that’s going to fail’.

A Facebook spokesman said last night: ‘We’ve always had the commercial incentive to remove harmful content from our sites. People don’t want to see it when they use our apps and advertisers don’t want their ads next to it.’

‘Good at dancing with data’