'Facebook Would Be Stronger With Someone Willing To Focus On Safety': Whistleblower Frances Haugen

On rebranding, Haugen said it made no sense given the security issues that have yet to be tackled

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaves the Houses of Parliament in central London on October 25, 2021 after giving evidence to members of the UK parliament on the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill. | AFP

New Delhi: In her first public address, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen urged her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to step down and pave way for change rather than allocating resources to a rebrand.

Speaking at the opening night of the Web Summit in Lisbon amid Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, Haugen said, "I think it is unlikely the company will change if (Mark Zuckerberg) remains the CEO."

The former Facebook product manager added, "Maybe it's a chance for someone else to take the reins...Facebook would be stronger with someone who was willing to focus on safety."

The Facebook parent company now named Meta will be focusing on building "metaverse," a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet.

Expressing views on the rebranding, Haugen said it made no sense given the security issues that have yet to be tackled. "Over and over Facebook chooses expansion and new areas instead of sticking the landing on what they've already done," Haugen told an animated crowd that frequently burst into applause as she spoke. 

Skeptics pointed out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a document trove that has revealed the ways Facebook ignored internal reports and warnings of the harms its social network created or magnified across the world.

Haugen told British and American lawmakers last month that Facebook would fuel more violent unrest worldwide unless it curbed its algorithms which push extreme, divisive content and prey on vulnerable demographics to keep them scrolling.

Zuckerberg called the metaverse "the next version of the internet", and said the tech giant wants to be recognised as a metaverse company now. 

Metaverse is a multiverse that interoperates more with the real world and incorporates augmented reality overlays. 

(With agency inputs)