Haugen testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Capitol Hill on Oct 5, 2021, in Washington. When the 37-year-old data scientist went before Congress and the cameras last week to accuse Facebook of pursuing profit over safety, it was likely the most consequential choice of her life. — AP
Less than two years after Facebook hired Frances Haugen to help correct dangerous distortions spilling across its platform, she had seen enough.
The idealism she and countless others had invested in promises by the world’s biggest social network to fix itself had been woefully misplaced. The harm Facebook and sibling Instagram were doing to users was rivalled only by the company’s resistance to change, she concluded. And the world beyond Facebook needed to know.
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