Mark Zuckerberg breaks his silence by saying that the allegations of the complainant Franz Haugen towards Facebook do not make sense. He says he does not know of any technology company that aims to make products that make people angry or depressed.
Mark Zuckerberg has issued a fervent defense of his company in a memo to Facebook employees, saying recent allegations by a former employee about the social network's negative impact on society "make no sense."
For the story, on Monday, a former Facebook product manager, Frances Haugen, testified before Congress on the occasion of a series of internal documents she gave to The Wall Street Journal. The focus of the hearing was the accusation that Facebook, Instagram and What's Up can have a negative impact on young people, because platform algorithms take care to keep users in the service at all costs, even when developers know the content is mentally harmful. That is, they deliberately anger users for profit.
In his response, Zuckerberg states : “The argument that we intentionally promote content that makes people angry for profit is completely absurd. We make money from advertising, and advertisers consistently tell us that they don’t want their ads next to harmful content or content with anger. And I don’t know of any technology company that aims to build products that make people angry or depressed. The ethical and business motivations all point in the opposite direction.”
Zuckerberg, in his statement, did not once mention the complainant Haugen by her name. He always spoke in the third person using the word ex-employee.
Facebook's internal investigation into the negative effects of Instagram on teenagers, however, has sparked outrage at the company. In his memo to employees, Zuckerberg said the company would continue to investigate and make it public when completed.
Dimitris hates Mondays...
