Facebook’s products “harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy”, a whistleblower has claimed.
Frances Haugen – who used to work as a product manager at the tech giant – has given damning evidence to US politicians in the Senate, days after leaking internal documents to the Wall Street Journal.
She warned: “Left alone, Facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good. Our common good.
“When we realised Big Tobacco was hiding the harms, that caused the government to take action. When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action.
“And when our government learned that opioids were taking lives, the government took action.”
Ms Haugen implored politicians in the hearing to take similar action – and alleged that the company’s leadership knows how to make its platforms safer, but won’t make the necessary changes “because they have put their astronomical profits before people”.
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She later warned that there was nobody at the company who could hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable other than himself.
“Mark holds a very unique role in the tech industry in that he holds over 55% of all the voting shares for Facebook. There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled,” she said.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said Facebook knew that its products were addictive like cigarettes – adding: “Tech now faces that Big Tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth.”
He also assured Ms Haugen that politicians will do “anything and everything to protect and stop any retaliation against you, and any legal action that the company may bring to bear”.
The whistleblower had revealed her identity in an interview with the 60 Minutes programme on CBS, where she claimed Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to combat misinformation that contributed to the US Capitol attack.
Among Ms Haugen’s key warnings was how Facebook optimised its algorithms to increase engagement through discord and arguments, something that benefited the company’s revenues.
Facebook has responded to a series of stories published by the Wall Street Journal based on her leaked documents, including one that suggested the company knew Instagram had a negative image on the body image of teenage girls.
Facebook denied that it “conducts research and then systematically and wilfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company” as it paraphrased the reports.
Analysis: This is devastating for Facebook
By Mark Stone, US correspondent
Within minutes of it starting, it was clear immediately that this would be a devastating hearing. With each sentence spoken by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen came more damning allegations.
She is not calling for the shutdown of Facebook. Ms Haugen says she believes there is a place for a responsible social media company. She highlighted the moments we all enjoy – the sharing of family photos. Staying in touch with distant friends. But beyond that – sentence by sentence – Ms Haugen is delivering a truly horrific assessment of Facebook’s practices.
“Almost no one outside Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook,” Ms Haugen said. “The company’s leadership keeps vital information from the public,” she added. “Facebook has repeatedly misled us about what it’s own research reveals about the safety of children,” she alleged.
She described how bullying online through Facebook and Instagram follows children home. It’s often the last thing they read when they go to bed. When she was at school, she said, kids could find a safe place at home at the end of the school day. Now, the pressures and impact is in their palm and with them all the time.
The focus is the safety of children but she broadened her testimony to include the influence Facebook has on politics and hate speech and its extraordinarily pervasive influence on societies in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia.
Ms Haugen was, until May this year, a product manager hired by Facebook to help protect against election interference on the platform. The chairman of the committee, Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal, said in his opening remarks: “The damage inflicted by Facebook will haunt a generation.”
This feels like a tipping point for the social media firm.
Voters across 50 states are preparing to cast their ballots after a bitterly contested US election campaign, which will see Donald Trump or Kamala Harris become president.
In the last few hours, both candidates have been giving their final pitches. “The momentum is on our side,” Ms Harris told a crowd in Philadelphia that chanted back, “We will win”.
“Tonight, then, we finish as we started: with optimism, with energy, with joy,” she said, while enjoying the support of celebrity endorsements on the day from Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi.
In contrast, Mr Trump ended his campaign in Michigan, repeating key messages about the economy and immigration.
A handful of states will play a crucial role in determining the outcome of the election. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin hold the keys to the White House.
To become president, the winning candidate needs 270 electoral votes or more, with each state carrying a different number of votes.
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But the focus has been on Pennsylvania which carries 19 electoral votes, the most of all the swing states.
It has been a remarkable journey for both candidates – with Mr Trump surviving two assassination attempts and Ms Harris not even originally in the running.
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For more than a year, the 2024 presidential race seemed destined for a rematch between Joe Biden and Mr Trump – but a disastrous TV debate by Mr Biden eventually forced him to withdraw from the ticket.
The Democratic party’s decision to replace Mr Biden with his vice president transformed the race and shifted polls in Ms Harris’s favour. But only just.
Many polls are too tight to call and, with a large margin of error, most experts are refusing to predict the outcome.
Later, attention will turn to those battleground states including Georgia, which is among the first polls to close at 7pm local time (midnight UK time).
State election officials told Sky News they could have a result as early as 10pm (3am UK time).
Even so, it could be several days before the US has a definitive result.
Voters are not just selecting a president. In addition, 10 states will hold abortion-related ballots, half of which would overturn existing restrictions.
Predict who you think will win in each swing state and we’ll tell you who the president will be if you’re right.
Tonight, Sky News will have access to the most comprehensive exit poll and vote-counting results from every state, county and demographic across America through its US-partner network NBC.
You can find out more about Sky News’ coverage here.
Up to 4,000 people voting overseas in the US election are having their ballots challenged in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
They include Selma Aldi, 47, from Camden in north London who received a letter on Sunday explaining that her ballot in the US presidential election is at risk of being rejected.
“It was a shock,” she said. “It was terrifying to be targeted, to potentially lose a right that I hold as very important. It’s even a feeling that someone is questioning my identity.”
The trainee GP, who grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania left America in 2000 but has voted via absentee ballot in every US presidential election since.
A letter from election officials in Dauphin County outlines the legal challenge. It reads: “The applicant is not registered to vote and therefore is not eligible to vote in Pennsylvania.
“Under Pennsylvania law, it is a felony to permit any person to vote who is not registered.”
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A hearing on the legal challenge is scheduled for Friday, in which Ms Aldi can respond.
Around 2.8 million US citizens living abroad are entitled to vote in the election, no matter where they are on polling day.
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But each state has different procedures and rules on how election paperwork can be sent and received.
But Ari Savitzky, senior staff Attorney at the ACLU said “any attempt to challenge [voters] eligibility is a clear violation of their rights”.
He told Sky News: “Between 3,000 and 4,000 challenges have been filed in Pennsylvania to the absentee ballots of US citizens living abroad.
“For decades, federal law has guaranteed the right of US citizens living abroad to vote in federal elections at their last US residence.
“In addition to being legally baseless, these challenges are an abuse to voters and to election administrators.”
Deborah Hinchey from another voting rights group, All Voting is Local, said: “Election deniers across Pennsylvania have submitted thousands of mass challenges to overseas voters.
“They want to block as many ballots as possible and silence our voices… but these baseless challenges have failed before and the proper checks and balances are in place to make sure they’ll fail again,” she added.
Tonight, Sky News will have access to the most comprehensive exit poll and vote-counting results from every state, county and demographic across America through its US-partner network NBC.
You can find out more about Sky News’ coverage here.