Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen Testifies Before Senate Subcommittee

Yesterday, Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen provided testimony before the Senate subcommittee on consumer protection. During her account, she repeatedly pointed outside of the country for examples of how the social media network could be used in a dangerous way leaving several lawmakers questioning whether they should meet to discuss national security concerns. Haugen referenced a series of links between activity on Facebook and deadly violence in Myanmar and Ethiopia and spying in China and Iran.

After the hearing, Facebook released a statement attempting to discredit Haugen and disputed ‘her characterization’ of many issues. The statement said “Today, a senate commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with c-level executives — and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question,” and added ‘we don’t agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about. Despite all this, we agree on one thing; it’s time to begin to create standard rules for the internet.”