Facebook whistleblower outlines three areas where MEPs should shape the Digital Services Act

MEPs met with whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen (8 November). The hearing came at an important time as the revelations will have an impact on the Digital Services Act, which will soon be adopted by the parliament. 

Haugen was excoriating on what she described as “Toxic Facebook” which put its own profits ahead of safety and amplified division. She welcomed the EU’s proposed Digital Services Act, but called for caution.

On transparency she said: “Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook. The company's leadership keeps vital information from the public, the US government, its shareholders and governments around the world. The documents I have provided prove that Facebook has repeatedly misled us about what its own research reveals about the safety of children. Its role in spreading hateful and polarizing messages, and so much more.” Haugen called for full access to data for research and more experts to study the data. She said that there should not be a broad exemption for trade secrets, otherwise Facebook will classify everything as a trade secret. 

Secondly, Haugen described engagement based ranking systems as dangerous. She quotes Marc Zuckerberg in 2018 saying that it was dangerous because people are more drawn to extreme content than more mainline content, therefore giving a larger fraction of the public platform to the most extreme. 

Thirdly, Haugen warned of the dangers of loopholes and exemptions. In particular, she warned against exemptions for news media content, saying that ‘neutral’ rules means that nothing is singled out and nothing is exempted: “Let me be very clear. Every modern disinformation campaign will exploit news media channels on digital platforms by gaming the system. If the DSA makes it illegal for platforms to address these issues, we risk undermining the effectiveness of the law.” 

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