(Paris) Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen pleaded Wednesday before French MPs for “human-scale” social networks, rid of “hyper-amplification” mechanisms that fuel disinformation and the spread of content hateful.
“We can put social networks back on a human scale, go back to 2008 or 2009, where our news feed was made up of content generated by our friends” and where “we were not talking about destroying democracy” said Mme Haugen before the members of the Law Commission and the Economic Affairs Commission.
“Facebook has been experimenting with this in recent years: if your family and friends are a bigger part of what you see, you have less hate speech, less polarization, less nudity, less violence,” did she say.
Frances Haugen has particularly targeted large groups on Facebook, which can have millions of members.
According to her, Facebook deliberately pushes users to join these large groups, because they allow an infinite renewal of content, to rivet the user to his news feed.
However, these groups are comparable to veritable “variant factories”, where the “most extreme” content is selected to be pushed towards millions of people, she regretted.
Frances Haugen, who has already spoken in Europe, including at the Lisbon Web Summit and in the European Parliament, once again pleaded for Facebook to be forced to make public the data it holds on the use of its service .
“Facebook tells us that it is aware of the problems” of hyperamplification of problematic content, “but we never have access to the data which would allow us to estimate the progress which is being made” to remedy them, he said. she lamented.
Facebook should be forced to provide them “every week,” to “10,000 pairs of eyes,” to researchers or algorithmic scientists who could assess things, she said.
The Facebook whistleblower also welcomed the willingness of French deputies to strengthen the protection of whistleblowers, in a bill that will soon be examined in the hemicycle.
“Any kind of support you give to whistleblowers will be beneficial,” she said.
Asked about the support she had been able to benefit from, she notably cited her mother who was able to provide her with robust psychological support when she was preparing her offensive.
“I was incredibly lucky to live with my mother last year because of COVID-19,” she explained.
“She is a pastor, and I have had countless hours of counseling and therapy,” she said.
“I spoke to other whistleblowers who didn’t have the same support, and they really suffered,” she said.