‘FB MAY HAVE HIT RED LINE’

Proof that it knew its apps can harm kids may be turning point in regulating social media giant

FACEBOOK’S previous major scandals barely dented its global dominance, but experts said on Wednesday the tech giant may have hit a red line this time: evidence that it knew children using its apps were at risk of being harmed.

A day after damning testimony to United States lawmakers from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, the long-established barriers to regulation — stalled legislation, free speech protections and tech’s rapid advances — were still in place.

But an insider with the company’s documents, showing that Facebook knew its tools risked worsening young people’s eating disorders or suicidal thoughts, may have been a turning point.

“The topic of kids being affected negatively by using Instagram or other social media apps is something Republicans and Democrats can agree upon,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

He said the level of cross-party civility in Tuesday’s hearing was something he had not seen in years, showing some of the impact of the drubbing Facebook has taken because of Haugen’s leaks.

She exposed reams of internal research to authorities and The Wall Street Journal in an exposure that has fuelled one of the social network’s most serious crises yet.

The company has bounced back from other scandals like the one involving Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads.

In that case, Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg went to Washington to apologise and the company agreed to a US$5 billion settlement with regulators.

US lawmakers have not passed any laws targeting the company, despite the outrage over the hijacking of personal data of millions of users ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

However, this new revelation about Facebook’s behaviour has seemingly hit a raw nerve.

“There are certain political issues that tend to be galvanising for folks and child protection is a key one,” said Allie Funk, senior research analyst in technology and democracy at Freedom House, a US think tank.

She said political fights and the thorny issue of freedom of speech on Facebook were still major barriers to significant reforms, but so was information.

“How are we going to make smart policy solutions if we don’t have insight into what’s going on (inside Facebook)?” Funk asked.

Facebook is famously insular, with whistleblower Haugen describing the belief that “if information is shared with the public, it will just be misunderstood”.

It was clear Facebook would not submit without a fight, if lawmakers in the hyper-polarised US Congress manage to move forward with any of the several existing legislation proposals.

Zuckerberg said in a post on his account that Haugen’s assertion that his company prioritised profit over safety was “just not true”.