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New whistleblower claims Facebook allowed hate, illegal activity to go unchecked

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/22/facebook-new-whistleblower-complaint/

The whistleblower’s allegations, which were declared under penalty of perjury and shared with The Post on the condition of anonymity, echoed many of those made by Frances Haugen, another former Facebook employee whose scathing testimony before Congress this month intensified bipartisan calls for federal action against the company. Haugen, like the new whistleblower, also made allegations to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees publicly traded companies.

The new whistleblower is a former member of Facebook’s Integrity team whose identity is known to The Post and who agreed to be interviewed about the issues raised in the legal filing. Perhaps the most vivid moment in the affidavit comes in a direct quote the whistleblower reported hearing from a top Facebook communications official during the controversy following Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The whistleblower’s name is redacted in the affidavit.

Latest complaint to the SEC blames top leadership for failing to warn investors about serious problems at the company.

As the company sought to quell the political controversy during a critical period in 2017, Facebook communications official Tucker Bounds allegedly said, according to the affidavit, “It will be a flash in the pan. Some legislators will get pissy. And then in a few weeks they will move onto something else. Meanwhile we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine.”

Bounds, now a vice president of communications, said in a statement to The Post, “Being asked about a purported one-on-one conversation four years ago with a faceless person, with no other sourcing than the empty accusation itself, is a first for me.”

Facebook spokeswoman Erin McPike said in a statement, “This is beneath the Washington Post, which during the last five years competed ferociously with the New York Times over the number of corroborating sources its reporters could find for single anecdotes in deeply reported, intricate stories. It sets a dangerous precedent to hang an entire story on a single source making a wide range of claims without any apparent corroboration.”

Whistleblowers say Facebook has not warned investors about illegal activity, in new SEC complaint

The quote from Bounds, according to the affidavit from the whistleblower, exemplified a widespread attitude within the company regarding problematic content on the platform, reportedly including illegal activity conducted in Facebook Groups. The whistleblower signed and dated the claims in the five-page affidavit on Oct. 13, the week after Haugen testified on Capitol Hill.

The SEC affidavit goes on to allege that Facebook officials routinely undermined efforts to fight misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content out of fear of angering then-President Trump and his political allies, or out of concern about potentially dampening the user growth key to Facebook’s multi-billion-dollar profits.

Friday’s filing is the latest in a series since 2017 spearheaded by former journalist Gretchen Peters and a group she leads, the Alliance to Counter Crime Online. Taken together, the filings argue that Facebook has failed to adequately address dangerous and criminal behavior on its platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The alleged failings include permitting terrorist content, drug sales, hate speech and misinformation to flourish, while also failing to adequately warn investors about the potential risks when such problems surface, as some of them have in news reports over the years.

“Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives repeatedly claimed high rates of success in restricting illicit and toxic content — to lawmakers, regulators and investors — when in fact they knew the firm could not remove this content and remain profitable,” Peters said in a statement.