Critics of Facebook have a drawback for Frances Haugen: Many love that the whistleblower leaked a treasure trove of paperwork exposing many of Big Tech's worst problems, but they hate his ideas on ways to remedy them.
Haugen has repeatedly insisted that breaking Meta Platforms, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and which changed its Facebook title last month amid a dangerous press torrent, will not fix the problems it has helped uncover. Those represent Instagram's poisonous results on the psychological well-being of teenagers and the company's struggles to end human trafficking.
Instead, Haugen has insisted in interviews and in congressional testimony that the company's problems are primarily the result of mismanagement under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has implemented algorithms that run his social media apps to incentivize social media. compromise at any price.
"These systems will continue to exist and will be dangerous even if broken," Haugen informed Congress in October.
Such comments have left dangerous tastes on the lips of many meta-critics, who initially hailed Haugen's leaks as a breakthrough as they seek to hold Facebook accountable for their increasingly outsized energy.
"She delivered the documents - great," Mike Davis, head of the conservative anti-Big Tech Internet Accountability Project, told The Post. "Thank you for your service. Now go."
"She is not an expert on policy, especially not on antitrust," said Davis, who previously worked for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and helps a list of House antitrust payments, along with one that would divide Meta. , Google and other big tech corporations.
Rather than dividing the company into elements, Haugen informed lawmakers that the federal government should abandon Meta entirely and create a new regulator that has the ability to request information from the company and power modifications to its algorithms.
"There needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me can do their duty after working in a place like this," Haugen said.
Haugen redoubled his thought in a Vogue interview on Tuesday, saying calls to disrupt the company are "so reductive" and will even violate the primary amendment.
"At that point, the way we're going to get the change is if, like, we have 18-year-olds having dance parties outside Mark Zuckerberg's house," Haugen added in the interview, which was accompanied by a photoshoot. .
But Haugen's perception that Meta's damages do not inherently stem from its size, but slightly from its management and lack of oversight, is flawed, according to Matt Stoller, an antitrust professional and former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders (I- VT).
"The documents were helpful, but she is not relevant," Stoller reported to The Post, adding that Haugen "doesn't really understand the core issue."
"He basically agrees with Mark Zuckerberg," he added. "He wants Mark Zuckerberg to be nicer."
A distinguished Republican lobbyist also criticized Haugen, arguing that opening up Facebook as much as better competitors would help address points along with Instagram's damaging results on teens.
"Haugen and his largely Democratic supporters are looking for the wrong solution," the lobbyist told The Post.
"We don't need a super regulator of speech," added the lobbyist. "We need to solve the problem of market power."
Meanwhile, the influential digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has tried to fit the needle by using Haugen's testimony to bolster its case for the company's disintegration without acknowledging that she opposes the idea.
"Facebook's broken system is driven by a growth-at-any-cost model, as indicated by some of the testimonies Haugen delivered to Congress," the group said. wrote in November. "In other words, the evil of Facebook is inextricably linked to its size."
"Requiring Facebook to ditch Instagram, WhatsApp and possibly other acquisitions and limiting future mergers and acquisitions by companies would go a long way towards solving some of the company's problems and would inject competition into a field in which it has been repressed. for many years". now, ”added the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Meta and Bill Burton, a former Obama administration communications staff member representing Haugen, did not respond to requests for comment.
