US Lawmakers Demand Facebook Probes; Whistleblower Says Children Harmed (reuters.com) 100
U.S. lawmakers pounded Facebook on Tuesday, accusing CEO Mark Zuckerberg of pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety and they demanded regulators investigate whistleblower accusations that the social media company harms children and stokes divisions. Reuters: Coming a day after Facebook and its units including Instagram suffered a major outage, whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in a congressional hearing that "for more than five hours Facebook wasn't used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies." In an era when bipartisanship is rare on Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties excoriated the nearly $1 trillion company in a hearing that exemplified the rising anger in Congress with Facebook amid numerous demands for legislative reforms.
As lawmakers criticized Facebook and Zuckerberg, the company's spokespeople fought back on Twitter, arguing Haugen did not work directly on some of the issues she was being questioned on. Senate Commerce subcommittee chair Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said Facebook knew that its products were addictive, like cigarettes. "Tech now faces that big tobacco jawdropping moment of truth," he said. He called for Zuckerberg to testify before the committee, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company. "Our children are the ones who are victims. Teens today looking in the mirror feel doubt and insecurity. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror," Blumenthal said, adding that Zuckerberg instead was going sailing.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, said Facebook has sought to keep its operations confidential. "Today, no regulator has a menu of solutions for how to fix Facebook, because Facebook didn't want them to know enough about what's causing the problems. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been need for a whistleblower," she said. The top Republican on the subcommittee, Marsha Blackburn, said that Facebook turned a blind eye to children below age 13 on its sites. "It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users."
As lawmakers criticized Facebook and Zuckerberg, the company's spokespeople fought back on Twitter, arguing Haugen did not work directly on some of the issues she was being questioned on. Senate Commerce subcommittee chair Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said Facebook knew that its products were addictive, like cigarettes. "Tech now faces that big tobacco jawdropping moment of truth," he said. He called for Zuckerberg to testify before the committee, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company. "Our children are the ones who are victims. Teens today looking in the mirror feel doubt and insecurity. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror," Blumenthal said, adding that Zuckerberg instead was going sailing.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, said Facebook has sought to keep its operations confidential. "Today, no regulator has a menu of solutions for how to fix Facebook, because Facebook didn't want them to know enough about what's causing the problems. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been need for a whistleblower," she said. The top Republican on the subcommittee, Marsha Blackburn, said that Facebook turned a blind eye to children below age 13 on its sites. "It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users."
How about the parents? (Score:2)
Most parents I know don't let their children on Facebook/Instagram for a variety of reasons, but no child should be subject to various state actor propaganda.
Making it a problem that 'congress' must solve just makes it so the biggest pocket wins, and Facebook has BIG pockets and donated massively to the current party in power: https://www.opensecrets.org/or... [opensecrets.org]
Re: How about the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Make social media illegal. Won't happen though, too many greedy politicians and lobbyists with their hands in big techs till.
Such a law would never survive a constitutional challenge. Sure "free speech has limits", but that would be stretching the definition of limits to the point of making the whole amendment pointless.
Like it or not, until and unless the constitution is amended (or rewritten via a constitutional convention), there are certain things the government simply cannot do.
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You can't make social media illegal in the US under the Bill of Rights. What you *might* be able to do is make the business model (selling user data) illegal. This would force Facebook to adopt a subscription model where users are the customer rather than the product. In a subscription model, engagement would still be an important metric, but it wouldn't be *all* important.
Re: How about the parents? (Score:1)
Weird, because I never smoked or did drugs. Living in Europe, I drank, legally and me and friends occasionally went overboard and then our collective parents made sure we enjoyed the consequences
Not an excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Most parents I know don't let their children smoke. That doesn't mean big tobacco shouldn't be prevented from selling and advertising cigarettes to children, or that schools shouldn't teach the dangers of smoking. Or is that too much "state actor propaganda" for you? How dare the big bad government interfere with free enterprise.
Re:How about the parents? (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean the parents who are suppose to be both over protective and watch everything their child does, however be lax enough for the child to learn their own way of doing things.
Look your parent is too strict, they are a helicopter parent. Look your parent is too lax, they are raising feral children.
Back in the old days where the kids use to go out all day and play, also had neighbors who were willing and able to discipline the other children who may have crossed the line, the community was raising the children.
This doesn't happen so much any more. Because for 1 the child playground is on the internet, 2 neighbors are afraid to discipline someone else's child, 3 any parent cannot watch their child all the time.
The old way just doesn't work. So we need to make sure that the online playground for children are more safe, because they may not be anyone watching them.
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Ah, so when a black family moves into a white neighborhood, you'd support encouraging the white families to "integrate" into the way the black family raises their children? Or is that not what you meant?
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I would expect the dominate culture to eh mostly dominate, but also to borrow the unique, gifts, ideas, and successful traits of the other.
Re:How about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect the dominate culture to eh mostly dominate, but also to borrow the unique, gifts, ideas, and successful traits of the other.
Nope. Can't do that. That's cultural appropriation.
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Multiculturalism has worked fine for over 2,000 years. The countries that have failed have been the countries that rejected it.
Re:How about the parents? (Score:4, Informative)
I watched a British parenting/nanny show where every mother on it said either "my parents were really strict and I'm not doing that" or "my parents were really liberal and I'm not doing that".
Children mostly raise themselves and become a product of the choices adults give them. That's why it's important to describe alternative outcomes for children. But it's not that easy because children don't understand consequences so "have chocolate now or have healthy teeth in 20 years" is not a choice, in their mind.
Re: How about the parents? (Score:1)
Weird, it works around here. If I go to the playground and a child is being a bully, and their parents donâ(TM)t intervene, someone else does. You donâ(TM)t need to spank, children react to adult authority.
Just because youâ(TM)re too afraid, doesnâ(TM)t mean everyone is.
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The old way just doesn't work. So we need to make sure that the online playground for children are more safe, because they may not be anyone watching them.
The old way works just fine.
I'm 48 with 3 kids. Wen I was 7 or so, I used to go over to my neighour to watch WWF as my folks didn't have Sky.
And when their Mother was away, Texas Chainsaw masacre dvd/beta max went on.
1) the playground is what kids make it, internet or no.
2) No sir, as a Beaver Leader (6-8 year old scouts) I discipline other kids just fine. Smacking no, but discipline can be verbal and demonstrative too.
It's rare they cross the line a second time.
3) So? We aren't the 24/7 state police.
We don
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to a degree. both state and private companies love uneducated people as there's much to gain from them and they're easier to herd. however, state definitely can not shy away from regulating issues like these once evidence of harm to society becomes public and so obvious, this is actually their job.
(otoh, careful what you wish for: any educated individual on slashdot capable of a modicum of critical thinking would immediately recognize the nonsensical use of the controversial "state actor propaganda" term in
Re:How about the parents? (Score:5, Interesting)
I let my kids go to gorcery store to get a candy. Does it mean, the store is allowed to sell cigarette and liquor to them too? So even if I let my kid on Instagram or FB because there are other useful information for kids, does it mean, I have given blanket rights to FB to expose them to anything they like? If they can't control it then they should not allow entry to kids at all (with or without parental consent).
There are casinos where you can eat pizza but they don't allow children (with or without parental consent). So either they should control what children get exposed to (grocery store model) or they should ban them outright (casino model).
They can't open up a store selling candy and let kids come with parental consent, and once inside, sell them liquor and cigarettes.
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There is zero useful interaction on FB and IG for children. As for information, there are a million other sources for that. How about you teach them how to use a library.
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... if I let my kid on Instagram or FB because there are other useful information for kids, does it mean, I have given blanket rights to FB to expose them to anything they like? If they can't control it then they should not allow entry to kids at all (with or without parental consent).
Have you read the user agreement you clicked on when you set up their account? Wait, you let your children on the internet unsupervised, don't you? Doing so implies you agree to every TOS they click through when they sign up for these accounts because YOU are responsible for everything they do as minors.
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Have you read the user agreement you clicked on when you set up their account? Wait, you let your children on the internet unsupervised, don't you? Doing so implies you agree to every TOS they click through when they sign up for these accounts because YOU are responsible for everything they do as minors.
A minor can neither agree to nor be bound by a contract without direct and explicit parental involvement on the minor's behalf. "...on the Internet!" does not alter this.
Re: How about the parents? (Score:1)
In Europe, we used to get crates of beer and cigarettes for other parents all the time. The parent would call ahead and the grocer knew damn well if a 16yo comes in all dodgy looking for beer. Itâ(TM)s called personal responsibility, and yes, we did things we thought our parents didnâ(TM)t know, and snuck a couple of pints into the movie theater, thatâ(TM)s part of growing up. Why should the state be involved in raising children?
Meanwhile - In Russia (Score:2)
Is this what we really want? Strong government regulation of social media?
In (Putin's may as well be) Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
Meh (Score:4)
I'm hard pressed to think of a large US tech business that DOESN'T put profits before any other consideration. Apple talks a good game, but their actions don't quite match their words. Google has been evil for years, and every business that's sold their corporate souls for the Chinese market is guilty. Only difference between them and facebook is that FB was able to qualify their own harm.
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If you want to stop this kind of thing, you need to fix the system that rewards companies that put profits above everything else, not just pick a scapegoat to put the blame on. Its not just tech either, oil, smoking, pharma, real estate, banking every industry puts profits first, the ones that don't are eventually outdone by companies that are willing to sell their souls for profit.
I think we can start by defining what exactly is rich enough.
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Should be simple enough. Start your own company, set "quality" to be the most important thing, even above profits, and you've solved the problem, eh?
Re: That word doesn't mean what you think it does (Score:2)
How many spoof accounts do you have? I don't know if I should just laugh at your angst or be more concerned you can vote while behaving like an adolescent...
Re: That word doesn't mean what you think it do (Score:1)
While you are ranting unironically from your Google Advertising Phone? You are sheep like the rest of us, just following a different master. Put your money where your mouth is and drop your government tracking device.
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These companies becoming behemoths that steamroll users / partakers / customers in the name of profits all have one thing in common though. Us. I mean, when it comes to Facebook I can't include me in 'us' at the moment as I haven't touched it in forever and a day. But the bottom line is, people line up in droves for the service because of something missing for them without it. And you can argue all day about what it is, but I want to at least add mental health to the conversation. If people weren't nee
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Its not just tech either, oil, smoking, pharma, real estate, banking every industry puts profits first,.
Every single one of those has been regulated.
Why shouldn't Facebook have to follow rules, too?
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You cannot fix greed. Nor can you fix corruption. The combination of the two will always foil whatever complex laws you try to put in place that limits the expression of either.
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I'll bite...
You cannot fix greed.
You can, if you allow people to realize there are more important things than the amount/volume of $whatever they cannot get enough of.
Nor can you fix corruption.
You can, if you can mix in a healthy dose of transparency and accountability.
The combination of the two will always foil whatever complex laws you try to put in place that limits the expression of either.
Perhaps, but complex problem solving involves breaking it down into subcomponents and addressing those.
Re: Meh (Score:1)
Companies without customers tend to die, Facebook and Twitter isnâ(TM)t dying, ergo, people donâ(TM)t care about their practices and the current outrage is overblown.
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Re: Meh (Score:2)
All fair points but it doesn't mean Facebook should get a free pass.
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And this one is especially lame. OMG, they will see hot chicks and feel bad about their bodies!! How ridiculous. If anything we have an obesity epidemic.
Also: Every time they post a selfie themselves there's a bunch of people who are going to call them fat and ugly. Including those hot chicks.
Re: Think Of The Children!!! (Score:2)
You just say "media"... you can look up the usage guide on Webster's.
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Or "mediums". Either is considered a correct plural of "medium".
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If you are talking about "mediums", "medias" is a traditionally acceptable form. For instance in the sentence, "we produce our game on different multi-medias". This usage is rather deprecated though but still can show up in older writing. However, in the above case they are referring "the media", as a collective establishment, not different data formats and in this usage we just say "media" which includes multiple entities but they work collectively in a manner.
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U R TEH FUNNIEZ.
Death to Facebook! (Score:4, Insightful)
The internet is harmful to children. (Score:3)
But I do agree with penalties. Just like no more advertisements for tobacco that appeal to children, facebook needs to be corralled.
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But the safety of the City Streets is the Government job.
They have police who monitor the streets, they are rules and regulations for property owners to keep their public area safe and clean.
Granted having your kids play on the city streets may not be ideal, but the government has a hand in their safety.
The same thing with Online Activities. The government may not be able to keep your kid fully safe, however they can put in some safeguards to have a general degree of safety.
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Re: The internet is harmful to children. (Score:1)
facebook needs to be corralled
If you mean made obsolete by Adobe shitware, then yes that sounds good, because I am equally outside the market for both.
Re: Squirrel! (Score:2)
I was wondering about this but then again I checked out of supporting any of the political parties of America.
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I think you don't understand that your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Did Reuters get the quote wrong (bad writing)? (Score:1)
Reuters said: Frances Haugen testified in a congressional hearing that "for more than five hours Facebook wasn't used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies."
IOW, Facebook *wasn't* used to perpetrate all sorts of bad things. The way that sentence is written it says Facebook is innocent.
Did they really mess up the writing that bad or was she really defending Facebook? The context from the rest of the article (and headline) seems to indicate the
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Perhaps it wasn't "used" to do any of those things in terms of intent but never the less had those effects?
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Re-read that quote. "For more than five hours" implies the more than five hours it was down yesterday so "wasn't used to . . ." makes perfect sense in context. They're saying that when the site is up and available it *IS* being used for all of those things.
Re: Did Reuters get the quote wrong (bad writing)? (Score:2)
Just remember that person gets to vote and cannot even deconstruct a rather simple English sentence, even when the meaning is rather implied via the article.
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Trouble with all this is two things are true (Score:2)
1) Facebook is aggressive parasitic actor that actively seeks create divisiveness for monetary gain. They gather massive amounts of personal information even on non users, which they repeatedly disclosed mostly though not being hacked but rather plainly irresponsible design choices. When faced with issues of their platform being used for serious criminal actions - ranging from harassment to human trafficking their response has been to take only proforma actions had hide behind CDA-230.
Facebook and its leads
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and the sudden political willingness of the establishment wing of the Democratic party to 'do something about facebook' when they had previously laughed off right-leaning claims of censorship etc is curious
Why?
Understanding that Facebook is not the government, and thus has a First Amendment right to ban people for ToS violations, doesn't mean Facebook can never do any wrong.
Just kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
The marriage killer.
As an adult, you get to compare the best highlights of your friends lives to your own shitty existence. Nobody posts their bad vacation photos. You don't see their messy house or hear about the argument with their spouse or see their kids fighting. It's all better than your life. And it's all fake.
But maybe you made a wrong turn somewhere... Hey, look at that! A friend request from your old college flame! He/She's looking pretty good nowadays. Maybe you should meet up sometime.
Facebook is not a "Town Square" or "Safe Space" (Score:5, Insightful)
Face is not a "town square."
https://www.thebulwark.com/fac... [thebulwark.com]
It is not a "safe space." It is really is a twisty funhouse mirror world of algorithm selected content to produce the most engagement of continuously profiled users created mostly by actors unknown to your users.
What's mind boggling is that there are humans that believe and alter their lives by what they see there.
There will be one result from these hearings (Score:4, Insightful)
Lots of screaming and demands for change, but no actual action will ever be taken, for the simple reason that action might generate results and results negate the needs for screaming politicians.
How about the lawmakers stop buying ads on Faceboo (Score:2)
start with regular media (Score:1)
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Whatever media says is a scandal (Score:2)
That's how it is these days.
Ok, so a company had some internal reports on some stuff related to its product. And it didn't share them outside the company.
(The company may also be taking complex action on the problems, but that is not part of the STORY, so shut up.)
When has that EVER happened in the corporate business world.
Every other company
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It's all a distraction anyhow.
There's a real whistleblower investigation going on at Project Veritas.
This is meant to muddle the issue and distract from the real problems.
All in an attempt to throw more power to the government that currently agrees with them.
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What a cogent reply...
'User safety', heh. (Score:2)
FUD (Score:2)
Deja vu all over again (Score:1)
Treat FB like Tobacco and Lead (Score:1)
Oh, the children (Score:2)
Oh, for the sake of the children we must censor everything that we don't agree with.
Facebook wants to limit liability (Score:1)
Algorithms have NO FREE SPEECH RIGHTS (Score:2)
Congress should immediately work to alter Section 230 or the courts should find that if algorithms are used to sift user generated content differently for different receiving users, Section 230 offers no shield to Internet services.
Why?
Algorithms have NO FREE SPEECH RIGHTS. They are not human. Outlawing their use or simply clarifying Section 230 does not apply to algorithm selected content is a start in reining in Facebook and Social Media.
Why do this?
Because Facebook does NOT PROVIDE FREE SPEECH. It ampli