is facebook evil? >> i cannot -- i think there's a real thing of people, good people, facebook is over mumbling full of conscientious, kind, empathetic people, good people who are embedded in systems with bad incentives are led to bad actions. there's a real pattern of people who are willing to look the other way, are promoted more than people who raise alarms. >> we know where that leads in history, don't we? so could we compromise that is not evil, maybe that's a moralistic word, but the way that some of the outcomes of facebook's behavior is evil? >> i think it's negligence. >> malevolent? >> malevolent has implied content and i cannot stand to the hearts of men but at least there is a pattern of inadequacy that facebook is unwilling to acknowledge its own power pickett believes in a world of flatness which hides the difference like children are not adults, right? they believe in flatness and it won't accept the consequences of their actions. i think that is negligence and it is ignorance, but i can

due to facebook active recommendation but clearly something facebook is researching. what action are they researching on groups that share extreme content? >> i do not know the exact actions that have been taken in the last six months, a year. actions regarding extremist groups promoted users as a thing facebook should not be able to say this is a hard problem we are working on it or they should have to articulate his or five-point plan here's the data that would allow you to hold us accountable because facebook acting in a nontransparent unaccountable way. >> i do not if they have a five-point plan. i do not know i did not work on that. to what extent should we be considering? should a regulator be asking these questions about facebook groups, they are significant driver of engagement as a problem the weight facebook has designed groups must be a big part of that too. >> a part of what is dangerous about groups as we talk about sometimes this idea, this is an individual problem or a societal problem. one of the things that happens in aggregate is the algorithms take

i have a text just put across by a facebook -- facebook spokesperson. just putting out the fact that francis --frances haugen did not work on these issues and has no information on the topic on facebook. if facebook wants to discuss their targeting of children, if they want to discuss their practices, their privacy invasion or violation of the children online privacy act, i'm extending to you an invitation to step forward, be sworn in and testify before this committee. we would be pleased to hear from you and welcome your testimony. one quick question for you. what is the biggest threat to facebook's existence? is it greed? is it regulators? is it becoming extinct or obsolete or teenage users? what's the biggest ms. haugen: i think the fact that facebook is driven by metrics. every individual decision may seem like it helps the growth but people don't enjoy it like when they pass meaningful social interaction back in 2018, research said users that it made it less meaningful. i think the aggregated set of short-term decisions and changers -- endangers fa

i will be back at the top of the hour. . ♪ >> will facebook, -- no facebook, instagram, or what's up for 12 hours. facebook blames a technical glitch. are we too reliant on social media to communicate and do business? has facebook become to powerful? this is "inside story." ♪ adrian: hello, welcome to the program. i'm adrian finighan. . facebook is the world's biggest social media network by far. it connects to 3 billion people, nearly 40% of the global population. many use instagram and whatsapp as well, both owned by facebook. but for several hours monday, no one could communicate or share content on the company's platforms. facebook apologized and blamed a technical glitch. this is the latest trouble for the tech strand. a former employee has raised concerns about privacy and misinformation. first here's roslyn jordan in washington. reporter: for billions of facebook customers, no likes, no in-store moment, no worldwide phone calls or messaging. facebook's chief technology officer needed twitter to tell customers it was having massive technical difficulties, then he apologized.

we now know why facebook publicly denied that instagram is harmful for teens privately, facebook researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years. we now know facebook puts profit ahead of kids online safety and chooses the growth of its product over the well-being of our children and it is indispensably delinquent in acting to protect them. it is failing to hold itself accountable and the question that haunts me is how can we or parents or anyone trust facebook? facebook last night disclosed two reports. we have those documents the whistleblower has provided. there are numerous other extensive and sophisticated reports that facebook has not disclosed.th that will be a question that i think will resonate throughout this hearing because the fact of the matter is facebook has concealed. research study experts show the harm that has been caused and in august ahead of this hearing senator blackburn and i wrote to mark zuckerberg and we asked as you see from the posterboard te research ever found if its it'splatforms and products can e a negative effect on children and teens mental h

facebook says it's apps such as facebook - around the world. facebook says it's apps such as facebook and i it's apps such as facebook and instagram are up and running after they apologise for the biggest outage in use the. out of the blackout, under the spotlight, lawmakers from a facebook whistleblower who claims the company covered up research into a time to mental health. the migrants sent back to a country that had not lived in four years. we report from haiti on america's deportees. what hurts is the treatment we received, inhuman, most of all, the chains on our feet, we're not slaves, migration is right, not slaves, migration is right, not a crime. not slaves, migration is right, not a crime-— not a crime. the real-life star trek, william _ not a crime. the real-life star trek, william shatner - not a crime. the real-life star trek, william shatner is - not a crime. the real-life star trek, william shatner is to . trek, william shatner is to boldly go into space at the age of 90. a warm welcome to the programme. it has been a rough 24

i think facebook's answers to facebook's destructive impact always seems to be, or facebook. we need more facebook, which means more pain and more money for facebook. would you agree? ms. haugen: i don't think at any point facebook set out to make a destructive platform. i think it is a challenge that facebook is an organization where parts of the organization responsible for growing and expanding the organization are separate and not with the companies that focus on the harm the company is causing. integrity actions, projects that were hard-fought by the teams trying to keep a safe are undone by new growth projects that counteract those same remedies. i do think it is a thing of there are organizational problems that need oversight and facebook needs help in order to move forward to a more healthy place. chrm. blumenthal: and whether it is teens lead into suicidal thoughts or the genocide of ethnic minorities and meaner -- in myanmar and fanning the flames of division in our own country or europe, are ultimately responsible for the immorality of the pain it has caused. ms. h

facebook. appreciate you taking the time to debate. coming up, it has been a rough 24 hours for facebook, not just because of frances haugen's testimony, but a massive outage that took facebook sites off the internet for hours. still, facebook shares surged today. we dig into why. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> do you believe they are actually going to discontinue instagram kids or just waiting for the dust to settle? >> i would be sincerely surprised if they do not continue working on instagram kids. i would be amazed if a year from now we don't have this conversation again. >> why? >> facebook understands that if they want to continue to grow, they have to find new users. they have to make sure that the next generation is just as engaged with instagram as the current one. the way they will do that is by making sure children establish habits before they have good self-regulation. by hooking kids. emily: that was facebook whistleblower frances haugen talking about the likelihood the social network w

facebook's answer always seems to be we need more facebook, meaning more money for facebook. would you agree? >> i don't think at any point facebook set out to make a destructive platform. it's a challenge where the parts of the organization responsible for growing are separate and not cross pollinate it with the part focusing on the harms the company is causing. projects are undone by new projects that counteract the same remedies. i do think there are organizational problems that need oversight, and facebook needs help with them to move forward to a more healthy place. >> teens bullied too suicidal thoughts or the genocide of ethnic minorities in myanmar, or fanning the flames of division within our own country or in europe, they are ultimately responsible. our >> facebook needs to take responsibility for the content. it needs to be willing to expect small trade-offs on profits. i think just the act is important. what we saw from antigone last week is an example of the behavior we need to support facebook growing out of. instead of focusing on the good they do, we must admi

except facebook. we for nothing less than full transparency. as long as facebook is operating in the shadows hiding its research from public scrutiny. it is an accountable. until the incentives change. facebook will not change. left alone. facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good. our common good. when we realized that tobacco was hiding. the harms that cause the government took action. well, we figured out cars safer with seat belts. the government took action. and what our government learned that opioids were taking lives. the government took action. i implore you to do the same here. today. facebook shapes, our perception of the world by choosing the information we see even those who don't use facebook are impacted by the majority who do. a company with such frightening influence over so many people over their deepest thoughts feelings and behavior needs real oversight. but facebook's closed design means it has no real oversight. only facebook knows how to personalize

by facebook. -- classic deflection by facebook. facebook's responses build her responsibility. if you sat there after the hearing, ask yourself, who did you find more credible? juan: i wanted to ask, one of the interesting aspects of the hearing was a both democrats and republicans on the senate committee were equally hostile and skeptical in terms of the role of facebook. excuse me for being somewhat skeptical about the potential for real action. on the one hand there would be the alternative of actually breaking up facebook, breaking up this huge goliath. or of even deeper reforms that addresd what you raised, the issue that was so brilliantly documented of the documentation of the self by the digital giant companies of our day of which facebook is only one of them. what direction do you see potentially going in congress to address what has been revealed here? roger: i think skepticism about congress is still appropriate, but as someone who works with congress all the time i took great joy in wa

except facebook. we can afford nothing less than full transparency. as long as facebook is operating in the shadows research from public scrutiny it is unaccountable. until the incentives change facebook will not change. left alone facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good, our common good. when we realize big tobacco and the harm it caused the government took action. while we figured out cars for safer seatbelts the government take action. and when we learned that opioids were taking lives the government took action. i implore you to do the same here. it faces her perception of world by choosing the information we see. even if we don't use facebook we are impacted by the company was over their deepest thoughtses feelings behaviors and needs. facebook's close design means it has n' real oversight. only facebook knows how personalized -- and other large companies like google and the independent researchers can download from the internet company search results and write abou

and what was good for facebook and facebook this past week, francis hogan. the unnamed source behind the wall street journal story shed her anonymity. facebook on research says it is not just the instagram is dangerous for teenagers, they harm's teenagers. is that is distinctly worse and other forms of social media . in her interview on c, b. s. news is 60 minutes. how can said the social media giant should declare moral bankruptcy for putting astronomical prophets before people. facebook has realized that if they changed the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on site. they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money, the elderly. this is something that people have known for a while. what is significant is this whistleblower came out with actual research and you know, the, the documentation and words of facebook themselves. outlining these very harmful impacts from their software and from their algorithms. she was on one of the probably most impactful news shows in the united states, which is 60 minutes. and so for the 1st time, many things

a company as powerful as facebook, the only one that gets to ask questions of facebook is facebook. we probably need a program where public interest people are embedded in the company for a couple of years and they can ask questions, they can learn about the systems and go out in academia and with the next generation of integrity workers. i think there are big questions around -- so legal and harmful content is dangerous. right? like, for example, covid misinformation. that actually leads to people losing their lives. there's like large social societal consequences of this. i'm also concerned that if you don't cover legal, but harmful content you'll have a much, much smaller impact of this bill and especially on impacts to children, for example, a lot what we're talking about is legal, but harmful content. >> thank you, and i know in your office you said there's internal to understand and said external academics and on those points. my second question is, the company found some new type of consult or a content that was leading to physical or mental harm to individuals. we talk about

ah no facebook instagram or whatsapp for 6 hours. facebook blames a technical glitch for its worst global outage in years. are we too reliant on social media to communicate and do business and has facebook become too powerful? this is inside story. ah, ah. hello, welcome to the program. i'm adrian finnegan. facebook is the world's biggest social media network by far. it connects 3000000000 people. that's 3040 percent of the global population. many use instagram and whatsapp as well, both owned by facebook. but the several hours on monday, no one could communicate or share content on the company's platforms. facebook apologized and blamed a technical glitch. the outage is the latest trouble for the us based tech giant, a former employee, as accused of putting profits. i had concerns about health safety, privacy, and misinformation. we'll bring in our guests in just a moment, but 1st a report from out there is, was one job in washington for billions of facebook's customers. no likes, no insta moment. no world wide phone calls are messaging. facebook's chief technology officer needed twitter

but right now, is facebook -- i know facebook is not allowed in countries like china. but do they provide platforms for authoritarian or terrorist based leaders, like the ayatollahs in iran? that's the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. or the taliban, or xi jinping, in my view, our biggest rival in this century. a communist party dictator who is trying to export his authoritarian model around the worlddo. they provide a platform for those kind of leaders who, in my view clearly don't hold america's interests in mind? >> during my time working with the threat intelligence work, i was a product manager supporting the counterespionage team. my team directly worked on tracking chinese participation on the platform, surveilling uigher populations in places around the world. that you could find the chinese based on them doing these kinds of things. >> so facebook -- >> we also saw active participation of the iran government doing espionage doing other state actors. so this is definitely something that is happening. i believe facebook's consistent understaffing

why does facebook do it live? but will to understand this, we need to look back a little to our 2019 when facebook announced that it would merge it that formed a product that forms. so this meant essentially taking together old technology that had a quiet when it bought whatsapp. when it bought instagram and putting them all behind the unified technical infrastructure. now for the company, this has a huge benefits. this means maintenance overhead can be reduced because you now have one developed steam operations team maintaining these services. it also has an advantage for advertising technology and understanding your customers. this means facebook can accumulate more data about users and unify that data or correlated between that forms if necessary, are to actually understand the behavior of the user. so there is a business benefits for facebook, but they come with this great negative attached that to you. now have much more centralization and you have more single points of failure. so that means if one thing bre

facebook has to change. congress, lawmakers, regulators, people inside facebook, consumers of facebook say it has to change. what does that look like? >> it's a good question. i think what these documents really show is that even when the company is made aware of its own problems, it can really struggle to fix them. and facebook has talked about how it spent $13 billion, it he's tens of thousands of people working on this issue. but what the whistleblower has said, it may not matter how much is already spent. what does it need to spend in order to address these issues. >> it's running ads saying it wants to have this conversation, and it wants -- or at least it's open to the idea that changes are needed. what are you hearing in terms of advertisers? folks outside are taking note of this. is this going to affect their bottom line? >> so, we've seen advertiser boycotts on facebook before. last year when there was a conversation about hate speech on facebook, there was a big advertiser boycott. a lot of times w

that is what facebook is doing. we are all been presented with different realies algorithmically on our screens and those realities a not based on open sets of dialogue or compassion or tolerance, but based on algorithmic extremism, based on all of this data being gathered about us -- none of which we have any clue about. amy: let's talk about examples. you're talking about the privatization of the global comments because this is were so many people, even with the digital divide, communicate. the u.s. is 9% of the global population of facebook come the global consumers. 90% are outside the u.s. but 90% of the protections or 90% of the resources going into dealing with the hate are in united states, facebook is putting in the united states. and even here, look at what happened. did it facebook set of a young woman who said they supported trump step immediately, and this is a fictional person, facebook saw she was inundated with requests to join qanon, with hate, and then we see what happened on january 6. this is wha

also facebook can make -- all so facebook can make money. ig stands for instagram but it also stands for insta-greed. the last thing we should allow facebook to do is push young kids to use instagram. ms. davis, will you commit that facebook will not launch any platforms targeting kids 12 and under that includes features such as like buttons, and follower counts, that allow children to quantify popularity? yes or no? ms. davis: senator markey i'd like to take a second to disagree with your comparison. our products actually add value and offer -- and often enrich children's lives. they allow them to connect with family and friends. mr. markey: i appreciate that. we have a limited time in question and answer. i have a question for you. will you stop launch, will you promise not to launch, a site that includes features such as like buttons and fallower counts that allow children to quantify popularity? that's a yes or no. ms. davis: those are the kinds of features we'll be talking about with experts trying to understand what is most age appropr

he is a free speech advocate. facebook whistleblower, and co author of the book behind the mask of facebook and montreal. we cross david for a hike. he is a practicing attorney and youtube or a crosswalk rules and effect. that means you can jump in any time you want. and i always appreciate david, let me go to you 1st as a practicing attorney. um and obviously, you know, the laws about freedom of speech. can this continued path of censorship, located right now, it's about vaccines. i don't really want to talk about vaccines on this program. but the fact that, you know, you are being told what we can say. what we can say a speech is being proscribed, okay? and that's a very different place than what we've been a only a few years ago here. so the fundamental question of this program is, can this censorship drive co exist way? what we understand as freedom of speech, go right ahead. it can't, and it doesn't, but it didn't start with the vaccines. it started slowly but surely a while back. you know, jordan peterson was sounding the alarm with some legislation coming out of canada. bill cc and i

and the facebook domain is not working on the desktop. facebook. facebook dot com is coming up at all, so i'm not sure if they're finally able to fix the issue. and i'm not sure if they even know what exactly caused it, but that's what the updates are. have been so far. i don't see any of the official channels. i mean, especially as a result of twitter in order to try and keep that customers informed about what's happening. they've given no indication as to whether this was the, the deliberate or just an accident. no. and so far and no one has given any indication as to whether or not this deliberate or an accident. there haven't been any allegations of a quote unquote cyber attack, at least not by those 2 companies. but hey, we are in the us. so i'm sure you give it about 10 to 30 minutes. one of the officials will come out and try to blame, trying to rush or ran in, in, in a very short period of time. i'm sure. so what are people doing in the mean time and about 6 hours without being able to send any messages on what's apple communicating on facebook or uploading the pictures of the

chris, i was wondering, should facebook be liable for the murders in the crime that took place on facebook live? and one thing that i see, it looks like a reboot from ready player one with the avatar situation. guest: i'm a big ready player one fan as well as a number -- as well as another -- number of other books. i don't think we can uncritically look at the future of technology. we are shifting to more complexity. we need to work to ensure more responsibility. as for liability, i do believe in the division that exists under the law. platforms should not be held liable for the users online, i think the consequences of too radical a shift from that framework and similar provisions in other countries would have harmful repercussions for the economy and the good that we get out of the services. i'm very aware and engaged with the pushback of big tech. there's is definitely room for improvement. but nothing like holding company is liable for everything i happens. host: let's talk to mike on the independent line in florida. good morning. caller: thanks a lot. it's a fascinating time we are li

facebook -- the demographics paired facebook does not tell us what they are. facebook has been trending older. that is why instagram has been so important to it. we put whatsapp in that category. the overall users, they were ok. especially in the u.s. and canada, which is saturated. it did take a sequentially. engagement has been fine. you're seeing decent growth there. the fact it is maintaining growth is really important. the demographic issues or challenges, whatever you want to call them, those are really important. facebook will continue to address that and focus there. instagram is a big area where they are getting a younger audience. taylor: you need to hear more information, more transparency on the breakdown of users on the call? is that a key headwind that could be removed? >> it is not going to be. i would be surprised to hear a ton of demographics on the call. i would expect to focus on the apple privacy initiatives. that is probably the biggest factor on why the guidance is lower than the consensus. that is having a larger than expected impact. fa

this went from saying facebook is bad and explaining how facebook and instagram can be addictive and harmful to children and can really undermine our democracy. roger, is this an inflection point? >> the thing about francis haugen is she is so courageous, so ah authoritative, and i found her utterly convincing. i thought her testimony today was extraordinary. in my mind what she has essentially done is -- mortgage loans or policing. i think when we're looking at it, we need to think about safety for all technology. i do think the motion that likes the fda that certifies products every year is actually a really good idea with harsh penalties if it turns out you're not safe. i think we also need to look at the business model. if facebook is perfectly clear, the notion here is that you're converting people's lives into data, collecting all the data they need out in the world and using that to forecast their behavior and to manipulate. the key problem here is we're talking about people's health information, whether they do a medical prescription or a medical test. we're talking about loc

, as established as facebook, as popular as facebook, really have a chance to get a fresh start like this? >> you know, it's funny because a lot of companies, i think, have tried to put aside the history of past events through a name change, and oftentimes it doesn't usually really work. people do remember the history. >> okay, scott, what does this mean? everyday people, layman's terms here. there is still a facebook, there's still an instagram, there's still a whatsapp. what does this mean, does it impact everyone on a day-to-day basis? >> not at all. if you use facebook and instagram, they're still there, still the same names. meta doesn't change anything about any of the apps we use or the social networking of it all. it's a new name, and they want to talk about a new direction. as jessica said, they want to turn a new page for various pr reasons and marketing reasons, but for the typical user of any age, this doesn't change anything. >> here's the stab at it. what is metaverse in english language? >> it's a term that refers to interacting but kind of in a different world. the wa

so what they see on facebook and social media. guest: it's a hobby horse of mine as well, prior to public policy i was in computer science and as a grad student in johns hopkins in baltimore i taught introduction to algorithms twice. i consider myself an expert on the subject. the algorithm itself is the formula, the recipe that underlies the code. facebook has written extensive and thoroughly researched technologies that seems to say you like this post from a democrat. he liked this other post from a democrat. maybe you want to see more content aligned with democratic interests. it's that kind of learning that happens in the background based on data from a variety of sources which ends up powering the kinds of things you see and what you don't see. host: what's the worry that congress has about what facebook is doing? guest: at the end of the day, it's any powerful system that we don't have an understanding of and belief in control of that i think powers seen in the backlash. i am phoned saying that 20 or so years ago, when membe

so hard intervention is like taking a piece of content off facebook, taking a user off facebook. soft interventions are about making slightly different choices to make the platform less viral. less twitchy. ah, mark was presented with these options, and chose to not remove downstream. m. s. i, in april of 2020. even though he in even just isolated in, at risk countries, that countries at risk of violence. ah, if it had any impact on the overall m. s. i metric. so he chose which in translation, millions less money. yeah. he said right. it was there. another reason given why they would do it other than they thought it would really affect their numbers. um, i do know, i don't know for certain like jeff jeff horwitz 3rd 4th the wall street journal. i struggled with us. we sat there and read these minutes and we like, how is this possible? like we've just read a 100 pages on how downstream emma's i, it expands hate speech, misinformation violence and signing content, graphic violence content. why? when you get rid of this and we leave the best theory that we've come up with, and i want to

that could be some legal problems for facebook out of it. and this morning we heard from the members of the committee saying that the for as i can say it, facebook is misled them that also could lead to, could lead to damage for facebook. beyond that, on the discussion too, if you expound the discussion to regulation and things get a bit more tricky because after all, in the end though, we're talking about regulating freedom of speech and who is to decide what is in citing evil freedom of speech and who's who's, who's to decide this is simply just information that people in power don't want us to know about. that's a very tricky issue. but i didn't seem to be at least some basis of agreement for more transparency of the algorithms facebook is using to target users and to, and to direct the been in different directions. and also what information about all the data that facebook collects about. all of us, i think that's at least a starting point. beyond that, it gets very, very tricky because you get to that discussion of who are the gatekeepe

talk about facebook's role in the threats to democracy given that the facebook whistleblower said the company was allegedly contributing to the hate and misinformation that led to january 6. cecilia: frances haugan, the whistleblower, her team in facebook in 2020 was disbanded, the civic integrity team. that team was charged with trying to fight election elated misinformation. this was at the time that the trump supporters were organizing on facebook's various platforms, facebook, spoke groups, facebook messages, instagram and whatsapp . they were organizing and riling each other up on what they believed was a stolen election. so what she said in the testimony this week in the senate consumer protection subcommittee was that his book turned a blind eye in the sense that it it's security forces down by disbanding her group that was the straw that broke the camels back for her and she decided to quit. it's important to note that what she was saying internally, this is a pattern she describes in all of her testimony, is a company that betrays itself differently in public fro what the com

post on facebook. those are useful. you're giving facebook a lot of credit for this or yeah, for sure. i want to meet mark zuckerberg, one day, and thank him actually, indeed, social media did have some very pronounced impacts on the arab spring. and earlier we discussed the change of opinion towards facebook with anti contributor nico house. it does seem a little bit peculiar that in 2011 with countries like tenicia libby and egypt, facebook was not only celebrated for put like for helping spread the news about the protests. but the algorithm seemed to be for perpetuating the protests and propelling them for that millions of people were able to react and noticed what was going on. now, interestingly enough, about 3 of those countries to protest there actually benefited united states interests. so what it seems like is on the like, now that the script has been flipped 10 years later. censorship actually benefits the united states. so i guess you could say it's pro democracy, i guess if you want to call facebook, you kno

she also accused facebook of repeatedly misleading the public about its own research. >> i saw facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety. facebook consistently resolved these conflicts in favor of its own profits. the result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more stress, and more combat. in some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people. this is not simply a matter of certain social media users being angry or unstable or about one side being radicalized against the other. it is about facebook choosing to grow at all costs, becoming an almost trillion company by buying its profits with our safety. >> she adds that mark zuckerberg is ultimately responsible and needs to be held accountable. she wants congress to step in and help make this happen. so how realistic is it to expect congress to act? and what should this regulation look like? joining us are nbc bay area reporter ginger saab. she spent the day watching this hearing and talking to experts. also with us, dr. nolan higdon, professor

: waking up to the facebook catastrophe. jessica gonzales, the ceo of free press and cofounder of change the terms, coalitn that works to disrupt online hate. and then, the pandora papers. >> this is like the panama papers on steroids. are loong at documents from 14 different providers, these are law firm, secret offshore accounts where people are in multiple jurisdictions, police -- in belize and some hour, these documents for the first time i showing tax havens. --are showing tax savings. amy: we look at a new report and the connection between offshore banking and colonialism. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. facebook whistleblower frances haugen is testifying on capitol hill today. expected to call on lawmakers to take action against facebook for the harm it poses to its users and the world. according to her prepared remarks she will say "when we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. when w

, facebook, it is not just facebook. it is all social media. it is twitter. it is instagram. it is the other, you know, parlers or whoever it is, i try not to go on social media. i post thing i want people to know about and i move on. i don't read the comments, i don't get trapped in the whole social media thing. because it allows lies to be spread unchecked. if we say something on this network that is not true, there are repercussions and ramifications, right? we face the consequences. if you do that on social media, there are no consequences. it is a wild, wild west. i can go on and say you, you know, when is the last time you -- and there are no consequences for it. even though it is not true. and it is not just someone coming up to you and screaming in your face and, you know, in public, or whatever, it is spread around the world. and people believe those things, just like the big lie was spread around the world in large part because of social media. and none of it is true. again, the election was not stolen. just be