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WebSummit2021 launched with Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

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The 2021 Web Summit opened yesterday (1 November) with Frances Haugen taking top billing. The gathering of the great and not always so good, gathered in Lisbon for its annual jamboree.

Haugen said that while polarizing and divisive content in places like the United States might have ruined some Thanksgiving dinners, in more fragile places in the world - which almost universally don't have even basic safety systems from Facebook - it is dangerous. These places were unlikely to have these systems in place any time soon. She explained that this was at least in part to do with language. Giving the example of Ethiopia, she said: “There are 100 million people and they speak six languages, they have 95 dialects, when your foundation of security is based on language, it doesn't scale to the most fragile places in the world.”

Haugen said she was very grateful to her mother, who is a priest and helped her decide on her course of action. She said that she did not originally plan to ever come out, but she realized if she wanted to have impact she would have to. 

Zuckerberg should stand down

“I am a believer in studying organizational structure. I saw very early on that we need to have healthy organizations, and we need to take processes in organizations seriously,” said Haugen.  She said that Twitter had separated those who make decisions on content to those who make decisions on the business more generally and relations with politicians, suggesting that this was a better model. 

“The reality is that Mark holds 54% of the shares of Facebook,” she said. “He is the chairman and the CEO. And I think the shareholders have the right to actually choose their CEO. And so I think it is unlikely the company will change if he remains the CEO. I hope that he can see that there's so much good you can do in the world and maybe it's a chance for someone else to maybe take a break. In short, yes.”

Transparency

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Haugen said that she profoundly believed that our societies deserve to have enough transparency into how Facebook works: “We need to have mandated accountable transparency.”

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