Establishment media-backed Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before the Senate Commerce Committee today, telling lawmakers that they should set up a new regulatory agency to protect against the “harms” of Big Tech (including so-called disinformation and hate speech), and that people like her should get to run it.
According to Haugen, the only possible way to fix the evils of social media (at one point in the hearing, she appeared to blame Facebook for causing the events of January 6th), is to put people like her in charge of regulating it.
“Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to analyze these experiments, to understand what is happening inside of Facebook, are people who ‘grew up’ inside of Facebook, or Pinterest, or another social media company,” said Haugen.
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 05: Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen leaves after appearing before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee during a hearing entitled ‘Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower’ at the Russell Senate Office Building on October 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images)
“And there needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me could do a tour of duty after working at a place like [Facebook], and have a place to work on things like regulation”
Haugen also made it clear what she would do if she were given regulatory power over Facebook and other platforms — she would avoid giving users freedom of choice, in favor of a one-size-fits-all model.
During an exchange with Sen. John Thune (R-SD) Haugen said that users should not be given a choice over whether to disable Facebook’s allegedly “harmful” algorithms.
“I don’t think it’s just a question of saying, should people have the option of choosing to not be manipulated by their algorithms,” said Haugen “I think if we had appropriate oversight, or if we reformed 230 to make Facebook responsible for the consequences of their intentional ranking decisions, I think they would get rid of engagement based ranking.”
Note — “engagement-based ranking” is a system of ranking content according to how many people react or engage with it. Haugen considers this system, where the ranking of content is tied to people’s level of interest in it, to be a problem.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.