Mark Zuckerberg Shares Note Addressing Whistleblower's Claims on His Facebook Page

Isabella James, Tech Times 06 October 2021, 02:10 am

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, has posted a note that he shared with his employees on his personal Facebook page.

The note addresses the claims made by whistleblower Frances Haugen as well as the outage that affected Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp users for a couple of hours.

The publishing of the note comes after Haugen testified in a Congress hearing on Facebook's internal research on Instagram's negative effect on its young users.

Mark Zuckerberg Addresses Outage

(Photo : Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 23: With an image of himself on a screen in the background, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency Libra, how his company will handle false and misleading information by political leaders during the 2020 campaign and how it handles its users’ data and privacy.

Mark Zuckerberg has posted a note on his personal Facebook page that was shared with the employees of his company.

The first thing that the Facebook CEO addressed is the Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp outage that affected users for a couple of hours.

"First, the SEV that took down all our services yesterday was the worst outage we've had in years," Zuckerberg said in his post. The Facebook CEO added that they spent the past day studying how the company can make its systems better to avoid similar incidents.

Zuckerberg also touched on the aftermath of the outage, which saw Telegram receive millions of new users in just one day.

"The deeper concern with an outage like this isn't how many people switch to competitive services or how much money we lose, but what it means for the people who rely on our services to communicate with loved ones, run their businesses, or support their communities," said the Facebook CEO.

Facebook Whistleblower Testifies in Congress

Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower who shared internal documents to The Wall Street Journal that led to its report on Instagram, has testified in Congress on Tuesday. The Congress is conducting a hearing on Facebook's internal research on the negative effects of Instagram on its young users.

According to a report by The Verge, Haugen took her testimony in Congress as a chance to attack Facebook's business model as well as the algorithm it is using for its News Feed.

"One of her main arguments was that Facebook's business of selling ads based on engagement leads it to keep users on the service at all costs, even when it knows that the content they're engaging with is harmful," per the report.

Zuckerberg Finally Addresses Haugen's Claims

Mark Zuckerberg has also addressed the allegations of the whistleblower via the note shared to his employees. He previously stayed silent even as the Frances Haugen went public on the TV show "60 Minutes."

In the note that he published on his personal page, the Facebook CEO said that many of Haugen's accusations do not make sense. He also said that it is "not true" that Facebook prioritizes profit over the safety and well-being of its users.

"The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical," Zuckerberg said in his note for his employees.

The Facebook CEO also added that he doesn't "know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed."

Also Read: Facebook Finally Reveals Research on Mental Health Effects of Instagram

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Written by Isabella James