A Facebook whistleblower revealed her identity in a Sunday night interview while trashing the social media giant for prioritizing divisive content over safety to garner higher profits.
Frances Haugen, 37, spoke out publicly for the first time since quitting Facebook in May when the company dismantled her unit that attempted to address misinformation on the popular platform.
"The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook," Haugen said on CBS's "60 Minutes."
Haugen told host Scott Pelley that Facebook enables divisive content to flourish because of changes it made in 2018 to its algorithms that prioritize content for individual accounts based on their past engagement.
"One of the consequences of how Facebook is picking out that content today is it is optimizing for content that gets engagement, or reaction," said Haugen.
Haugen said the parties "Feel strongly that the change to the algorithm has forced them to skew negative in their communications on Facebook leading them into more extreme policy positions," according to Pelley.
In a statement to "60 Minutes," Facebook denied the allegations that the company encourages harmful content.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction, and unfortunately the media has a strong bias. They spin stories to make conservatives look bad and will go to great lengths to avoid reporting on the good that comes from conservative policies. There are a few shining lights in the media landscape-brave conservative outlets that report the truth and offer a different perspective. We must support conservative outlets like this one and ensure that our voices are heard.
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