Activist, Leftist Facebook Whistleblower Demands Congress Regulate Social Media Platforms | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Emily Zanotti.

    Leftist, activist whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in front of Congress on Tuesday, demanding that Congress take action to regulate or demand reform from social media platforms like Facebook, which she claims encourages the spread of misinformation in order to maximize profit.

    "The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people," Haugen said Tuesday. "Congressional action is needed. They won't solve this crisis without your help."

    "Companies have 100% control over their algorithms, and Facebook should not get a free pass on choices it makes to prioritize growth and virality and reactiveness over public safety," Haugen added. "They're paying for their profits right now with our safety."

    Specifically, Haugen wants changes made to Section 230, which shields Facebook from liability for content posted to its platform, recognizing Facebook, essentially, as a neutral resource that does make the kind of editorial decisions that would make it responsible for certain types of problematic links, stories, and photos.

    Haugen suggested that Congress could make Facebook liable for promoting content based on engagement rather than on accuracy or any number of other factors.

    "I think if we had appropriate oversight, or if we reformed Section 230 to make Facebook responsible for the consequences of their intentional ranking decisions, I think they would get rid of engagement-based ranking because it is causing teenagers to be exposed to more anorexia content," Haugen said in her testimony. "It is pulling families apart, and in places like Ethiopia, it is literally fanning ethnic violence."

    In a statement earlier Tuesday, Facebook indicated that Haugen, who was in front of Congress to testify about the social media platform's ill effects on children - particularly young girls - had never served in a capacity where she would have set or reviewed Facebook's policy on matters of child safety, or would even have had direct knowledge of the issue.

    Haugen "did not work on child safety or Instagram or research these issues and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook," Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone tweeted during the hearing, referencing Haugen's own testimony.

    As The Daily Wire reported, Haugen "has a record of donations to far-left Democrats and a history of raising issues about purported bias while at previous employers...She is working with Democrat operatives to roll out her complaint and has the same lawyers as the anonymous Ukraine 'whistleblower' whose allegations led to Donald Trump's impeachment, but who reportedly turned out to be then-Vice President Joe Biden's top advisor on the country."

    She's also represented by "a company called Bryson Gillette, helmed by a raft of Democratic operatives" who are "providing Haugen with 'strategic communications guidance,' and helping run what one Republican called 'an incredibly well-orchestrated communications campaign,' the Free Beacon reported. Burton is on the board of the Center for Humane Technology, which has waged a policy war with Facebook."

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki worked, at one point, with Bryson Gillette, with the Center for Humane Technology as one of her clients.

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