Facebook's oversight board to meet with whistleblower Frances Haugen

Facebook's oversight board to meet with whistleblower Frances Haugen

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) oversight board, a body set up by the social network to give independent verdicts on a small number of thorny content decisions, said on Monday it would meet with former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen in the coming weeks.

Haugen revealed last week she was the person who provided documents used in a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram’s harm to teenage girls.

Earlier,, US lawmakers pounded Facebook, accusing CEO Mark Zuckerberg of pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety, and they demanded regulators investigate whistleblower accusations that the social media company harms children s mental health and stokes divisions.

Zuckerberg, hours later in a public Facebook post, defended the company, saying the accusations were at odds with Facebook s goals.

"The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical," he wrote. "We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don t want their ads next to harmful or angry content. And I don t know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed."

During a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing, whistleblower Frances Haugen called for transparency about how Facebook entices users to keep scrolling, creating ample opportunity for advertisers to reach them.

"As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable," said Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook s civic misinformation team. She left the nearly $1 trillion company with tens of thousands of confidential documents.