Facebook whistleblower Hogan urges Zuckerberg to step down

Lisbon: In her first public address since the leak of a trove of damaging documents about the inner workings of Facebook, whistleblower Frances Hogen urged her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to dedicate resources to a rebrand. Quit instead and allow change.

“I think it’s unlikely that the company will change if [Mark Zuckerberg] The CEO remains,” Haugen said in a packed arena on Monday on the opening night of the Web Summit, a tech festival attracting dozens of thousands of people in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

The former Facebook product manager responded affirmatively to the question of whether Zuckerberg should resign, adding: “Maybe this is a chance for someone else to take the reins… Facebook will be stronger with someone who knows security.” Was ready to focus on.

With nearly 3 billion users, the social network changed its name to Meta last week, in a rebrand that focuses on creating “Metaverse,” a shared virtual environment it bets will be the successor to the mobile Internet.

But early adopters of the virtual world known as the Metaverse blasted Facebook’s rebranding as an attempt to capitalize on growing buzz over a concept that wasn’t designed to divert attention from the recent negative.

Commenting on the rebranding, Haugen said that it doesn’t make sense given the security issues, which are yet to be resolved.

Haugen told an animated crowd, “Facebook repeatedly expands and picks new areas, instead of sticking landing on what they’ve already done, which was often met with applause.”

Facebook’s announcement came amid strong criticism from lawmakers and regulators over the corporation’s business practices – particularly its vast market power, algorithmic decisions and policing of abuse on its services.

The social media network, which operates a dual-class stock structure through which Zuckerberg and a small group of investors control the company, has hit back, saying the documents leaked by Haugen were used as a “false picture”. ” was to be painted.

Haugen told British and US lawmakers last month that Facebook would fuel more violent unrest around the world unless it curbs its algorithms that push excessive, divisive content and allow them to scroll. prey on vulnerable demographics.

“A major problem is that the foundation of the platform’s security is based on language-by-language monitoring of content, which does not apply in all countries where Facebook operates,” Haugen said.

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