Mark Zuckerberg has “heard the message” from Donald Trump about restricting online content and his Meta platforms will intervene “less and less” on users during the president-elect’s administration, according to whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Haugen, who revealed the Facebook and Instagram owner’s struggles with user security in 2021, said the US president-elect thought “the right way to run social media is without restrictions.”
Zuckerberg’s announcement on Tuesday that Meta would eliminate third-party fact-checkers in the US and make other moderation changes reflected this view, he added.
“Mark’s announcement is basically saying, ‘Hey, I heard the message, we will not intervene in the United States,’” Haugen said.
Announcing the changes on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said he would “work with President Trump” to stand up to governments seeking to “censor more,” pointing to Latin America, China and Europe, where the U.K. and EU have introduced privacy laws. online security.
Haugen also expressed concern about the effect on Facebook’s security standards in the global south. In 2018, the United Nations said Facebook had played a “determining role” in spreading hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, who were victims of a genocide in Myanmar.
“What will happen if another Myanmar starts growing again?” Haugen said. “Is Trump’s State Department going to call Facebook? Does Facebook have to fear any consequences for doing a bad job?
The co-chair of Meta’s oversight board told The Guardian that the independent body will protect human rights as it examines controversial changes to Meta’s content moderation policy.
Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, said that after Meta’s decision to eliminate some fact-checkers and relax its “hateful conduct” policies, the oversight board was the only institution with authority to “review high-level issues, controversial content moderation decisions and make impactful recommendations that improve the user experience for billions around the world, promote freedom of expression and protect human rights.”
He spoke after one of his co-chairs, former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, admitted there were “huge problems” with Zuckerberg’s ads and expressed concern about the rights of LGBTQ+ and trans people and the potential for harm in real life. .
Zuckerberg said there were “a lot of illegal things” that still needed to be removed from their platforms, such as child exploitation and drug-related content, but that Meta was determined to restore “freedom of expression.”
Also on Wednesday, UK far-right monitoring group Hope Not Hate said it expected to see “a dramatic increase in toxic content” on Meta platforms, and that the changes would likely make it easier for far-right groups to coordinate local activity of the kind that fueled the August riots in England. He called on the Labor Party to strengthen online safety laws following the Meta measures, warning: “We have seen time and again (that inflammatory online content) is having a really violent effect on our streets.”
Haugen, who worked on the company’s civic integrity team, which focused on election-related issues around the world, said Trump did not want one of the Internet’s most powerful companies to limit social media use by part of the Maga movement. She cited a facebook internal report in 2021 that said the company had failed to stop the “Stop the Steal” movement from using the platform to discredit the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and incite the January 6, 2021, riot in Washington.
“What Trump wants is for Facebook to step back and not intervene, because Maga knows how to irritate social networks. And so it’s not just about content; it’s also about behavior,” he said.
“Trump has made it very clear that the only consequences he will bring to Facebook will be Facebook’s actions (on content and behavior). We should expect Facebook to act less and less.”
On Wednesday, Maria Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her work as a journalist in the Philippines, said Meta’s moderation changes meant “extremely dangerous times” lay ahead for journalism, democracy and users. of social networks.
Haugen has launched a nonprofit group dedicated to addressing the harms of social media and advise on social networks at Issue One, a nonprofit organization focused on election and political integrity. However, Haugen said he did not believe greater content moderation on Meta was the answer. He said the company should focus more on fine-tuning the algorithms that deliver content to users and be transparent about how those algorithms work.
“They are doing the worst of all worlds. “They’re not making any of those real holistic changes and they’re cutting back on the few safety systems they had,” he said.
Meta has been contacted for comment.