15. Ten minutes with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen

25 June 2023

I.

This is how Frances Haugen introduced herself when she appeared before the US Congress: “I am a former employee of Facebook and I joined because I believe Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us. But today I am here because I believe that Facebook’s products can harm children, fuel division, weaken our democracy, and much more.”

Haugen shared thousands of internal Facebook documents with journalists so the whole world could see that the company’s policies were flawed. To give one example, Facebook knew full well that its algorithms were pushing increasingly extreme content onto users. Even when that was sowing division or even contributing to dangerous situations.

Teenagers following #healthy_recipes were being led, for instance, to pro-anorexia content. People searching for #extreme_weightloss were gradually guided toward self-harm. All driven by a blind algorithm trying to keep people engaged for as long as possible, so they would see more ads, which in turn made Facebook richer.

II.

Frances Haugen writes about this in her recently published book De Facebookfacade (or in English: The Power of One, Blowing the Whistle on Facebook). Haugen saw from the inside how recommendation algorithms work — the ones that determine what we’re served on social media. Because your Facebook timeline looks completely different from mine. And what you see on Instagram, I probably don’t. Haugen also witnessed the disruptive consequences these algorithms can have. How people become disconnected from reality and get sucked into conspiracy theories. Or are gradually incited to violence.

This week Haugen was in Amsterdam, where she opened the Mozilla Festival, a small-scale conference at the Tolhuistuin focused on technology’s impact on society. Afterwards I got to interview her for ten minutes for NU.nl. Far too short to go deep, but she had a tight schedule and fortunately we managed to get to the heart of the matter quickly. It ended up being twelve minutes.

As we walked to our spot on the terrace, I told her I’d been reading her book like a man possessed over the previous few days. I’d just barely missed finishing it. “The last fifty pages are my favorite part!” she said. “You’ve still got that to look forward to.”

I’ve since finished the book and I understand why she said that. Books of this kind tend to get stuck in documenting wrongdoing, but Haugen ends with solutions for social media platforms. “A safer, more enjoyable social media experience is possible,” she says. But her revelations are only a first step, and more need to follow.

III.

Because: not much has changed yet. But change takes time, writes Haugen. When cars first started driving around, they didn’t have seatbelts or airbags. In fact, no carmaker wanted to be the first to build safety features into their vehicles. People might think there was something wrong with the cars, making the measures necessary.

Ford introduced the first seatbelt in 1956. It then took 19 years before it became compulsory in the Netherlands.

As long as pressure isn’t turned up on social media companies, they will continue to keep people engaged for as long as possible, Haugen believes. Even if it harms society. And the fact that we keep doomscrolling is not entirely our own fault. She told me that in the following clip:

IV.

Wes Anderson is not a fan of the TikTok and Instagram trend of copying his style. He tries to avoid the videos. “If someone sends me something like that, I immediately delete it and say: ‘Sorry, but please don’t send me things of people doing me.’”

“I don’t want to look at it and think: ‘Is this what I do? Is this what I mean?’ I don’t want to see how others see me, because who knows — I might start making that kind of thing.”

In other words: Wes Anderson doesn’t want to become a caricature of himself. It also bothers me slightly when people dismiss his films as a mere trick. Pastel colors, a perky classical tune, and centered shots don’t tell the whole story. That much is also clear from most of the imitations you find on social media. Let’s treasure directors with their own vision and style.

This week Asteroid City, Wes Anderson’s new film, is released. At the time of writing I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll come back to it next week. I did watch this fine Vox video about film props and miniatures (made in Wes Anderson style, it should be said).

PS.

A new single from The Smile (the band of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner)! Bending Hectic runs eight minutes, starts quietly but then reaches great heights. Playing this on full volume on repeat.

A new film is coming from Ethan Coen (one of the Coen brothers, who previously made Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and The Big Lebowski).

Two highlights from Glastonbury. Arctic Monkeys plays Body Paint, their best live number at the moment. Although Alex Turner has recently made a habit of hanging irritatingly far behind the beat, everything in the second half is superb.

The other highlight is Rick Astley. Yes, the one from Never Gonna Give You Up. These days he also plays Smiths songs very creditably. Like this one, together with the band Blossom:

I’ll be testing Twitter alternative Bluesky in the coming weeks. See you there?

This newsletter is produced as a weblog on my website. You can read along live there throughout the week as I add to it.