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On a Zoom call with Romper the day before she was set to appear at the Mom 2.0 Summit on a panel about online safety last month, Frances Haugen does not mince words: what we are facing is nothing short of a public health emergency.
She would know.
Haugen is a former Facebook data scientist who made international headlines as the whistleblower who disclosed internal documents to Congress and the SEC about how the tech company’s choices knowingly negatively impact kids’ mental health. Haughen has been on an accountability crusade ever since, and wants everyone to know that her former employer (now named “Meta”) in 2021 has deliberately misled the public about the impact of its products on the mental health of children and young adults.
Haugen wants to be clear that if kids in your home cannot tear themselves off Instagram or TikTok, the blame does not rest with parents and caregivers. The addictiveness of the platforms is by design. This is a much bigger problem than a parental oversight issue.
Social media companies could have been putting safety measures on their products to save lives long ago, she points out, but they simply chose not to. “This is not a problem with your child. This is a problem with product design.”
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