According to a recent report, many patents filed by Google featuring the inventions of far-left Facebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen during her time working at the company could imply that Haugen was well aware of Facebook’s actions to drive toxic engagement amongst teens for some time before stepping forward.
In a recent report, HotHardware highlights a number of patents filed by Google for the work of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen that appear to show that the former scientist and product manager at Facebook had in-depth knowledge of the types of algorithms used by companies like Facebook and Google yet did little to draw attention to the issue until she left Facebook recently.
Facebook uses algorithms and machine learning to analyze user engagement patterns which then determine the type of content that users like to engage with. Haugen claimed in her testimony before Congress last week that Facebook spreads content to users in order to promote engagement and reaction “even when that content is knowingly harmful, based the social network’s own research.”
However, recently discovered patent filings from Google featuring inventions developed by Haugen and others show that Haugen has a firm understanding of the methods and mechanisms needed to filter unwanted content and to present specific content to users based on their engagement.
HotHardware writes:
All of the patents where Frances Haugen was featured are visible in this advanced search of the US Patent Office’s database. Considering they were all filed while Haugen was at Google, many of the patents are geared toward search results, but titles like, “Evaluating content in a computer networked environment”, “Providing suggestions to a user based on social activity patterns” and “Determining content of interest based on social network interactions and information” seem to be squarely in line with Haugen’s allegations excoriating Facebook. One patent in particular, “Generating a filtered view of a content stream” encompasses the allegations succinctly.
The summary for that patent plainly states, “In general, one innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving a request to filter content items displayed in a content stream, with the request specifying one or more criteria for filtering of the content stream; traversing a social graph to identify items of data with attributes satisfying at least one of the one or more criteria and connections to the user; identifying content items associated with the identified items of data; generating a filtered view of the content stream, wherein the filtered view includes the content items identified and excludes the other content items displayed in the content stream.” Further, a patent application from 2018 titled, “Using Metadata to Summarize Social Media Content” also seems apropos to the discussion.
How to interpret these insights will ultimately depend on your opinions of Frances Haugen and Facebook. Is Haugen a hypocrite that knew exactly how to fix Facebook’s problems and did little to sway the company during her tenure? Or is she a frustrated subject matter expert trying to effect change for the greater good of society? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Read more at HotHardware here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com