If you saw the stories popping up on social media about Instagram’s effects on teen girls, you may have wondered where that information was coming from.

The whistleblower who handed over that information went public on “60 Minutes” last night, and was revealed to be a former Facebook employee Frances Haugen. Before she left the company earlier this year, Haugen made copies of internal documents on Facebook and the other companies it owns, like Instagram, Messenger, Messenger Kids, and WhatsApp. She then provided those documents to the Wall Street Journal, who then created an entire investigative series called “The Facebook Files,” which broke the stories of how there is a “whitelist” of VIPs who can post almost anything they want without getting snagged in the Facebook algorithm, the “Instagram Kids” push, even as the company knew that Instagram was creating “problems” for teen girls, and the manipulating of the News Feed on Facebook in 2018, in order to get more “reactions” from people.

Frances Haugen covered many of these same issues in her interview on “60 Minutes” with Scott Pelley on Sunday evening. The entire interview can be seen here, but in the course of the interview – and in the glowing profile that the Wall Street Journal gave Haugen once she revealed her identity – Frances Haugen is revealed to be an idealist of the worst kind.

She believes that Facebook can be remade into a force to promote her version of a good, responsible, safe and moral social media – and she wants the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to push down regulations on Facebook to make that happen.

Now, we can be completely honest – there is nothing particularly good or wonderful that Haugen is revealing about what was going on behind the scenes at Facebook. But is anyone really shocked that Facebook decided to prioritize its own bottom line instead of “the greater good?”

“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” says Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. https://t.co/smI4XydM1m pic.twitter.com/2CkCbYuKfT

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 3, 2021

Here’s a question that never gets asked of Haugen: who decides what is the “the greater good?” We learned during her “60 Minutes” interview, and in her WSJ profile, that the reason she feels so strongly about getting rid of “misinformation” is because she had a personal friend, who was helping her recover after a diagnosis of celiac disease and other health issues, fall down the internet rabbit hole into some bad stuff.

A family acquaintance hired to assist her with errands became her main companion during a year she spent largely homebound. The young man bought groceries, took her to doctors’ appointments, and helped her regain the capacity to walk.”

“It was a really important friendship, and then I lost him,” she said.”

The friend, who had once held liberal political views, was spending increasing amounts of time reading online forums about how dark forces were manipulating politics. In an interview, the man recalled Ms. Haugen as having unsuccessfully tried to intervene as he gravitated toward a mix of the occult and white nationalism. He severed their friendship and left San Francisco before later abandoning such beliefs, he said.”

Ms. Haugen’s health improved, and she went back to work. But the loss of her friendship changed the way she thought about social media, she said.”

This leads to another revelation of Haugen’s – that Facebook, in 2018, began actively manipulating their News Feed in order to drive more “clicks.” This seems to have been partly in response to the allegations that were piled on that Facebook had allowed Russia to “manipulate” the 2016 election. Of course, we all know now that the “Russian collusion” story was a massive frame job by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, aided and abetted by the FBI. But the popular notion that Facebook had helped Donald Trump get elected took root everywhere, causing Mark Zuckerberg to announce a change.

In January 2018, Facebook was coming off a trying year. It was on the defensive in Washington about what U.S. intelligence officials said was Russia’s use of the platform to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

Mr. Zuckerberg announced he was changing Facebook product managers’ goal from helping people find relevant content to helping them interact more with friends and family.”

He said the shift was driven by research showing that passive media consumption on Facebook—notably video, which had been exploding on the platform—wasn’t as good for well-being as interacting with other people.”

He framed the change as a sacrifice. “Now, I want to be clear: by making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down,” he wrote on Facebook. “But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term too.”

Facebook training videos and internal memos show another reason for the change—the company’s growing concern about a decline in user engagement, which typically refers to actions like commenting on or sharing posts. Engagement is viewed inside the company as an important sign for the health of the business.”

The bottom line is that Facebook was losing views, so they messed with the News Feed in order to give people more “opportunity” to click on things. Haugen says this led to getting rid of safety algorithms.

“Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money,” says Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. https://t.co/wbxxfgorNE pic.twitter.com/zpQIwcdatr

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 3, 2021

All of Haugen’s revelations are leading people to now point the finger at Facebook for the January 6th riot at the Capitol. Since it has become painfully obvious that the knee-jerk reaction to blame Parler was overblown and wrong, Facebook is now on the hot seat for not being able to stop groups from communicating with each other. However, they deny that they got rid of certain safety algorithms after the 2020 election was over.

“We spent more than two years preparing for the 2020 election with massive investments, more than 40 teams across the company, and over 35,000 people working on safety and security. In phasing in and then adjusting additional emergency measures before, during and after the election, we took into account specific on-platforms signals and information from our ongoing, regular engagement with law enforcement. When those signals changed, so did the measures. It is wrong to claim that these steps were the reason for January 6th — the measures we did need remained in place through February, and some like not recommending new, civic, or political groups remain in place to this day. These were all part of a much longer and larger strategy to protect the election on our platform — and we are proud of that work.”

Frances Haugen, who seems incredibly naive, thinks that the government should be trusted with the power to regulate Facebook, in order to “save” it. That’s her end goal.

Are Facebook employees overworked, and is the company understaffed? I can believe that premise. Do they rely on the algorithms to do more work than they should? Anyone who has ever tried to appeal an very stupid post removal or ban knows that. Do they want to sell as many ads as possible, and get kids addicted to using their services nice and early, so that their entire lives and preferences are on Facebook and Instagram, so that Facebook can then keep selling ads to their interests? Absolutely. Is social media a massive problem for teenagers. Yes, no question. Should Facebook be more transparent about how they create algorithms and use the information that they are constantly gleaning? It would be in their best interests.

BUT.

Is the government absolutely itching to shove some regulations down Facebook’s throat? YES. Should the government be mandating that social media curate what we see, so we only see the “right” news articles and the “right” information? NO. Should the government be able to tell Facebook what to do, in order to achieve “the greater good?” NO. Does Frances Haugen have any idea what giving government oversight to a social media site would actually mean in the long term? NO.

Facebook has painted themselves into a corner of their own making, and it’s nearly impossible to feel one bit sorry for Mark Zuckerberg. But there is no way on earth that the federal government should be mandating what Facebook should or should not be allowing on their News Feed. Remember the Hunter Biden laptop story, and how Facebook (along with Twitter) suppressed it right before the election? If that’s what happens without government intervention, imagine what would happen WITH government “oversight.”

Featured image via Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license