Facebook has been under scrutiny for a long time. But the latest controversy is one of the most serious allegations against Facebook yet.
Facebook's content moderation policies are designed to maintain safety on the social network, but some are concerned that they may be too strict, allowing violent and disturbing content to proliferate. The recent Facebook outage happened shortly after a whistleblower revealed identity,
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, leaked the documents. She leaked these documents so people could see what’s happening with their sensitive data. The document contains some important information about how Facebook is making money by selling user data. She also revealed the Facebook earns the most profit when they can promote polarization of information, hatred, or polarization of opinion. In an interview with 60 minutes, she said In the 2020 election (in which Joe Biden won) they stopped promoting the polarization of false/fabricated information, hate, or opinion in their algorithms for a "temporary" period but turned it back on after the election, which often led to the US Capitol Riot. It happened earlier this year because of Facebook. In 2017, when Facebook made a big change in their algorithm, they adopted a policy of increasing their profits by spreading hatred on the internet (because as long as you spend time on Facebook, your chances of making money will increase and the main way to keep you stuck is to give you the opposite). Many political parties then complained that we now have to adopt a lot of extremist policies for you which we might not have adopted without Facebook in normal times.
As for Facebook's companion app Instagram, 13.5% of teenage girls think Instagram makes suicidal thoughts worse. 16% of teenage girls say Instagram creates an eating disorder. As a result, they have a negative attitude towards their bodies and become depressed due to repeated visits to Instagram.
Haugen explained everything here is happening just make user interaction longer so that Facebook can get more benefit out of that. She also said these problems are solvable if congress steps in and makes sure to respect free speech.
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