Facebook’s Firestorm

The public utility is run as a private fiefdom

Protestors in London England in 2018 outside parliamentary inquiry into fake news (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

This is shaping up to a very bad week for Facebook. On Sunday, whistle blower Francis Haugen, a former Facebook employee, appeared on 60 Minutes where she made the case that the social media giant had systematically lied to the public about the deleterious effect the platform has on the world. Haugen’s arguments, based on thousands of pages of internal Facebook research, had previously been reported at length by the Wall Street Journal, in a major expose called “The Facebook Files.” The report, published behind the paywall, had only a limited reach, so the 60 Minutes segment brought the evidence to a vastly larger audience. Then, on Monday, Facebook suffered a worldwide outage, effecting not just the platform but its affiliates Instagram and WhatsApp.

The outage underscored an important point about Facebook: it is a public utility, albeit one run by a private firm with no regard for civic duty. In rich countries like Canada or the United States, the outage was a minor inconvenience, but as Reveal reporter Aura Bogado pointed out, “The repercussions of WhatsApp being down in The Rest Of The World are vast and devastating. It's like the equivalent of your phone and the phones of all of your loved ones being turned off without warning. The app essentially functions as an unregulated utility.”

There are different ways Facebook could be regulated: it could be broken up into smaller companies (as Elizabeth Warren suggests). It could be socialized and run like a public utility (as happened with many energy and transportation companies in the late 19th and early 20th century). There could be government bodies set to regulating its operation. Laws could be changed so that it could be liable for what is posted on the site, as publishers normally are. 

The exact nature of the reforms will be wrangled out politically, but there is no disputing the fact that regulating Facebook is necessary.

One of the most devastating features of “The Facebook Files” is it shows that internal Facebook research validated the criticisms made of the company but management did nothing. Strikingly, Facebook was aware that changing their algorithm to encourage “meaningful social interactions” actually had the effect of making extremism spread like wildfire. 

Speaking on 60 Minutes, Haugen said, "So they've taken brand new accounts, so no friends, and all they've done is follow Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Fox News, and like a local news source. And then all they did is click on the first ten things that Facebook showed them — where Facebook suggested a group, they joined that group. So they're not doing any conscious action here, just one time go in — and within a week you see QAnon, and in two weeks you see things about white genocide.”

Kayla Gogarty @ohhkaygo

On 60 Minutes Overtime,Haugen said that FB took new accounts and followed Trump, Melania, Fox News, and a local news source, clicked on the first 10 things FB showed them, and joined suggested groups."Within a week you see QAnon. In two weeks you see things about white genocide."

On Tuesday morning, Haugen testified before a Senate committee. In the meantime, Zuckerberg was out sailing, a fact not lost on the Senators in the committee. 

The Verge @verge

Sen. Blumenthal calls out Zuckerberg directly for not appearing himself to address the issue: “Rather than taking responsibility and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing.”

But Zuckerberg has good reason to duck the limelight. There’s nothing plausible to be said in Facebook’s defense after Haugen’s revelations. 

(Edited by Emily M. Keeler)

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