The story began at the end of last month when a Facebook employee leaked confidential files and documents and handed them over to the Wall Street Journal and then to the US Senate (Congress). More important than what was stated in these files was that the social media giant Facebook harms the mental health of girls, spreads hoaxes and misinformation, contributes to disrupting democracy and allows VIPs to break established rules.
The subject of the leaked files did not receive much attention until former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed herself on Sunday on 60 Minutes, an American television program on CBS. A few weeks ago, Facebook had internal documents for the Wall Street Journal.
In the same program, the former employee who was working as a director of content at Facebook launched a direct attack on the company and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Special; But this will make them spend less time on the platform and therefore they will see less ads, which means that Facebook will make less money, while the company – according to Francis – overlooks the many damages caused by its applications, including the Instagram application owned by the company itself, to earn more money.
There was a conflict of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for the company.. Facebook repeatedly chose to favor its own interests such as making more money over the interest of users.. Francis Haugen.
It is noteworthy that from the documents that Francis collected and shared with the “Wall Street Journal”, what clearly shows that Facebook lies to the public about combating hate speech, violence and misinformation, and that the company is aware of the negative and harmful effects of its services such as the Instagram platform on teenage girls because of the advertisements it displays to them. and suggestions during research.
Facebook servers down for hours
After a long period of Francis Haugen’s appearance on the screen and revealed itself, there were technical problems in the servers of Facebook that led to the suspension of all the company’s platforms, including the Facebook application, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Facebook started displaying error messages around 6:40 pm KSA. And then, within minutes, Facebook and all the other company’s applications disappeared from the Internet completely!
The interruption lasted for more than five hours, before the applications gradually returned to work, and the interruption caused many users to go to other alternatives, as the Telegram application got more than 70 million new users in just one day, and users also resorted to Twitter, Telegram, Signal and tiktok.
Facebook explained in a statement that the malfunction was caused by a “wrong change in the company’s server settings” that connect the Facebook platforms to users, and the company added that the technical malfunction caused many problems that affected even many internal tools and systems that amounted to preventing employees from entering the company’s building, according to what I mentioned New York Times reporter.
People and companies around the world depend on us to keep in touch, and we apologize to all those affected by this issue.
On the other hand, a report by the “New York Post” suggested that the sudden malfunction that caused the cessation of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, may be intentional and caused by Mark Zuckerberg himself, in order to erase evidence indicating that Facebook committed safety crimes before being subject to legal accountability.
Leaked secrets of Facebook in front of Congress!
Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who leaked thousands of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal, appeared before the US Congress on Tuesday 5/10/2021; To demand regulation of this social network, the former Facebook data analyst testified before the council and made a direct condemnation of the social networking giant.
Haugen pointed out that Facebook trumps profit over the public interest, harms children, helps divide, and threatens American democracy. Because she knows it will affect her bottom line, especially as she knows that displaying extremist content increases the chances of user engagement and engagement which helps the company’s platform to grow.
Leaked Facebook secrets in front of Congress
Frances was not the only one who was hostile to Facebook, prior to her testimony, Senate Democratic leader Richard Blumenthal launched a scathing attack on the company, accusing it of greed, blindness and putting profits at the expense of the interest and health of users, especially teens, noting that the company allowed minors Create secret accounts without the knowledge of their parents.
Senator Marsha Blackburn also spoke about the effects of the Instagram platform on teenage girls, saying that Facebook did not care about the safety of young people at all. While the Republican Senator of Mississippi encouraged Haugen and demanded it to tell everything it has, pointing out that America’s children are now attached to giant technology companies, and stressed that Facebook will face serious consequences if it is proven that it was involved in misinformation.
Mark breaks his silence and responds to the allegations:
Mark Zuckerberg did not delay and broke his silence to defend his company, Facebook, against the smear campaigns against it, as he put it. His response came in a post on his official Facebook page, in which he criticized the testimony of “Francis Hogan” before the Senate, which said that the company cares about profits at the expense of people’s safety Constantly striving for growth without any concern for the public interest.