TIME magazine featured Mark Zuckerberg on its latest cover.
TIME magazine featured Mark Zuckerberg on its cover in its latest issue amid claims that Facebook fuels division, harms children and puts profits before safety.
The cover photo is accompanied by an illustration of a phone app delete icon and a seemingly simple question – “Delete ‘Facebook’?” – and two options – “Cancel” or “Delete”.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product manager for Facebook’s civic misinformation team, told US lawmakers this week how the company is pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety. She said Facebook has also done too little to prevent its platform from being used by people planning violence.
How Facebook forced accounts by shutting down the team that put people before profits https://t.co/xm1uu7SCfl
– TIME TIME) October 8, 2021
TIME’s cover story, published on the magazine’s website, is titled “How Facebook forced an account by shutting down the team that put people before profits.”
The article talks at length about Facebook’s civic integrity team and highlights how the social media giant’s decisions have alienated many members of the critical team that fights misinformation and hate. Facebook disbanded the team in December 2020, which eventually led Frances Haugen to speak out.
“Regardless of Facebook’s future direction, it’s clear that discontent is simmering internally. The leaked documents and Haugen’s testimony have already sparked calls for stricter regulation and improved the quality of public debate about influence of social media,” writes Billy Perrigo, the author of the article.
Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg hit back at the whistleblower’s claims, saying they were “just plain untrue”.
“The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical,” Zuckerberg wrote in a memo to Facebook employees that he later posted to his account.
“I don’t know of any tech company that sets out to create products that make people angry or depressed. The moral, business, and product incentives are all going in the opposite direction.”