Facebook whistleblower’s identity revealed on ‘60 Minutes’

The former Facebook employee who dropped a bomb on the social media giant by releasing documents including internal research has finally been identified. She revealed herself through the American TV show “60 Minutes” last weekend.

She is Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old who started working at Facebook in 2019. During the interview, she admitted she was responsible for the leak of documents that ignited a firestorm of controversy in recent weeks.

According to CNN Business, Haugen was a product manager at Facebook and worked on civic integrity issues at the company. She brought the company’s detailed research documents to the US Congress and The Wall Street Journal to let everyone know that FB is aware that its platforms are being used to disseminate misinformation, hate, and violence.

It was said that the documents also showed that Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company tried to conceal evidence for this. Scott Pelly, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, quoted a line in the internal document and it said: “We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world.”

On the other hand, Haugen said during her interview with the TV program that Facebook gave more importance to making profits than the benefit or well-being of the public. And for revealing the documents, she said her intention is to fix the company and not damage it.

“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” she said.

CNBC reported that the whistleblower also wrote on her web page about her experience while working for Facebook. She said that while still part of the company, she became increasingly alarmed by the firm’s choices that mostly jeopardize public safety.

Risking her own safety, she took the courage to expose what is going on inside.

Now, due to the bombshell, she is set to appear at the Senate to testify before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security on Tuesday this week.

“I’ve seen a bunch of social networks, and it was substantially worse at Facebook than anything I’ve seen before,” she said during the interview. “At some point in 2021, I realized I’m going to have to do this in a systematic way, that I’m going to have to get out enough [documents] that no one can question that this is real.