Sen. Richard Blumenthal painted a stark picture of Facebook ignoring the threats that its products pose to children and teenagers at a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.
Two years ago, Blumenthal, D-Conn., chairman of the subcommittee, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., held a hearing featuring whistleblower Frances Haugen.
“My name is Frances Haugen. I used to work at Facebook and joined because I think Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us. But I am here today because I believe that Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, weaken our democracy, and much more,” Haugen said.
On the same day as the hearing, Arturo Bejar, the then-director of Engineering for Protect and Care at Facebook, emailed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and other executives with documents that validated Haugen’s testimony, Blumenthal said in his opening remarks.
This email, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, outlined Bejar’s belief there is “a critical gap” in the way the company approached harm, and in order to mitigate this, the company would need to admit the current approach used by Meta experiences wasn’t working.
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