Another insider blasts Facebook
‘‘Facebook executives . . . knew the firm could not remove [harmful] content and remain profitable.’’
A new whistleblower affidavit submitted by a former Facebook employee alleges that the company prizes growth and profits over combating hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post.
The allegations, shared with the Post on the condition of anonymity, echo many of those made by Frances Haugen, another former Facebook employee whose scathing testimony before the US Congress this month intensified bipartisan calls for federal action against the company.
Haugen, like the new whistleblower, also made allegations to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees publicly traded companies.
The new whistleblower is a former member of Facebook’s integrity team.
Perhaps the most vivid moment in the affidavit comes in a direct quote the whistleblower reported hearing from a top Facebook communications official during the controversy following Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
As the company sought to quell the political controversy during a critical period in 2017, Facebook communications official Tucker Bounds allegedly said, according to the affidavit: ‘‘It will be a flash in the pan. Some legislators will get pissy. And then in a few weeks, they will move on to something else. Meanwhile, we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine.’’
Bounds, now a Facebook vicepresident of communications, said in a statement: ‘‘Being asked about a purported one-on-one conversation four years ago with a faceless person, with no other sourcing than the empty accusation itself, is a first for me.’’
The quote from Bounds, according to the affidavit from the whistleblower, exemplified a widespread attitude within the company regarding problematic content on the platform, reportedly including illegal activity conducted in Facebook Groups.
The SEC affidavit goes on to allege that Facebook officials routinely undermined efforts to fight misinformation, hate speech
and other problematic content out of fear of angering then-US President Donald Trump and his political allies, or out of concern about potentially dampening the user growth key to Facebook’s multibillion-dollar profits.
Yesterday’s filing is the latest in a series since 2017 spearheaded by former journalist Gretchen Peters and a group she leads, the Alliance to Counter Crime Online.
Taken together, the filings argue that Facebook has failed to adequately address dangerous and criminal behaviour on its platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. This
includes permitting terrorist content, drug sales, hate speech and misinformation to flourish, while also failing to adequately warn investors about the potential risks when such problems surface.
‘‘(Chief executive Mark) Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives repeatedly claimed high rates of success in restricting illicit and toxic content – to lawmakers, regulators and investors – when in fact they knew the firm could not remove this content and remain profitable,’’ Peters said.
Yesterday’s filing, which was accompanied by a second affidavit from Peters based on interviews she conducted with other former company employees, argues that top leadership at
Facebook, including Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, are aware of the severity of problems within the company but have failed to report them in SEC filings available to investors.
The whistleblower told the Post of an occasion in which Facebook’s public policy team, led by former Bush Administration official Joel Kaplan, defended a ‘‘white list’’ that exempted Trump-aligned Breitbart News, run then by former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, and other select publishers from Facebook’s ordinary rules against spreading false news reports.
The whistleblower’s complaint also criticises Facebook for not being aggressive enough in addressing evidence that the platform was being used by military officials in Myanmar to spread hate speech during mass killings of the minority Rohingya ethnic group.
The whistleblower also sharply criticised Facebook’s alleged failure to adequately police its online groups. Secret groups, in particular, enable ‘‘terrifying and aberrant behaviours’’ and are poorly monitored, if at all, according to the affidavit.