A whistleblower last night accused Facebook of placing “profit over safety”, as it emerged that she had complained to US securities regulators that the social media company was misleading investors.
Speaking on the news programme 60 Minutes, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, unmasked herself as the whistleblower who leaked a trove of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal.
Haugen suggested that Facebook had lied to the public, exaggerating the progress it had made in tackling hate, violence and misinformation on its platform, presenting “tens of thousands” of pages of documents as evidence.
“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Haugen said in the interview. “And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimise for its own interests, like making more money.”
The revelations have plunged Facebook into its deepest crisis since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. But the company defended its policies after the broadcast.
“We stand by our public statements and are ready to answer any questions regulators may have about our work,” said Lena Pietsch, Facebook’s director of policy communications.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Haugen, 37, worked as a product manager at Facebook since 2019 on the civic integrity team. She left the company in May of this year.
Her career has also included stints as a product manager for Pinterest, Yelp and Google, and she was part of the founding team of the first iteration of dating app Hinge, then called Secret Agent Cupid. She is due to testify at a Senate hearing tomorrow.
Do you agree with Frances Haugen? Email me your thoughts to gordon.smith@ft.com. Thanks for reading FirstFT Americas and here’s the rest of today’s news — Gordon
Five more stories in the news
1. Evergrande halts share trading Evergrande suspended its shares from trading in Hong Kong as the world’s most indebted real estate developer braced for the possible sale of its property management unit. The company is rushing to sell assets to improve its financial position after missing payments on offshore bonds last month.
2. Democrats offer compromise on spending Senior Democrats say they are willing to lower the $3.5tn cost of the spending measures in Joe Biden’s signature package to boost America’s social safety net, following days of infighting that has threatened to derail the president’s economic agenda.
3. New Japanese prime minister prioritises China threat Fumio Kishida has created a new post to respond to China-related risks in the areas of semiconductor supply chain, cyber security and intellectual property after being elected Japan’s 100th prime minister.
4. Massive data leak exposes hidden wealth of world leaders King Abdullah II of Jordan secretly bought properties worth more than $100m in London, Washington and Malibu, according to leaked documents obtained by several news organisations. Millions of documents were leaked showing the hidden wealth of hundreds of rich and powerful people around the world in offshore tax havens, among them an associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
5. Top financiers to attend UK green investor summit The bosses of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, BlackRock and Blackstone will be among those attending a green summit this month that British ministers want to generate billions of pounds of investment for the country.
Coronavirus digest
Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s chief executive, said a new formulation of the company’s vaccine would probably be needed by the middle of next year to protect against coronavirus mutations.
Israel was set to strip more than 1m citizens of their vaccine passports, becoming the first country to regulate booster shots as evidence of fully immunised status.
As winter looms, western nations have put their faith in booster shots and child vaccination campaigns to fortify their defences against a Covid-19 resurgence.
The day ahead
Opec meeting The group and its allies are due to meet virtually today to talk about increasing oil supplies amid a recent surge in energy prices. Eurozone finance ministers will also meet to discuss the energy crisis. For an in-depth look at what’s happening in the energy sector, sign up to Energy Source, a twice-weekly newsletter.
European Medicines Agency Covid-19 booster decision The agency is expected to decide whether to endorse a BioNTech/Pfizer booster.
Join us on October 7-8 for the Moral Money Summit Americas, debating money, regulation and how businesses can act more responsibly. Sign up here to receive the Moral Money newsletter in your inbox.
What else we’re reading
Electric vehicles: the revolution is finally here In a relatively short space of time, the transformation in the auto industry from petrol cars to electric vehicles has gone from first gear to fifth, with enormous implications for jobs, urban development and even geopolitics. Why is this happening now? Peter Campbell, global motor industry correspondent, and Joe Miller, Frankfurt correspondent, explain. This is the first part of an FT series.
The left’s low-rate fantasy makes inequality worse For years, progressives have argued that loose monetary policy and low interest rates are necessary to promote employment, particularly at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. This is not the case, argues Rana Foroohar.
Swamp Notes: Anyone who dismisses the spectre of Donald Trump being re-elected in 2024 is unwittingly conniving in its eventuality, writes Edward Luce in the latest edition of our US politics newsletter. Sign-up here.
Payday for US college athletes rattles $14bn industry For more than 100 years, student athletes received no payment. Now a U-turn means they could earn as much as $1.5bn this year alone. But confusion remains as to how a patchwork of state laws and possible federal legislation will regulate this fledgling market for image rights.
Lunch with the FT: Thomas Chatterton Williams In July 2020, Williams was one of the organisers of “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”, an open letter signed by 152 scholars and writers, published in Harper’s magazine. Recently the writer sat down with Jemima Kelly to talk about making enemies on the left and the right.
Money isn’t everything in the Great Re-evaluation People are rethinking what they really want from working life, and employers need to watch them closely, writes Pilita Clark. The shift has profound implications for employers of all industries.
LinkedIn: how the professional networking site got personal A focus on career and networking has been what differentiates LinkedIn from rival social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Over the past 18 months, however, users have increasingly veered into personal musings, Dan Roth, editor in chief of LinkedIn, tells the FT.
Food & drink
Pears fit for a king, oysters cooked in beef fat, roasted grapes and rare potions with no hangovers, all in our Autumn Food & Drink Special.
Source: Economy - ft.com
