Hello,
I was asking myself whether or not the recent Facebook whistleblower story deserves an entry here.
For the record, Frances Haugen, a former FB engineer, has just testified in front of the US senate regarding several internal reports that were leaked to the public roughly a month ago. Her main claim is that Facebook puts profit and growth before users' safety despite being aware of its negative influence. She notably claims that Facebook is fully aware that Instagram has a toxic influence on teenagers through internal research, yet has done nothing in that regard.
Her accusations actually cover a broad range of topics, such as how FB reacted in the aftermath of the 2020 US election and the subsequent Capitol storming, the fact that they barely remove content promoting human trafficking and how FB algorithms tend to promote hate speech in general – the issue being, apparently, even worse outside of the US.
What also makes the story interesting, beyond its damaging claims, is that it's one of the rare moments in modern US politics where there is apparently bipartisan support for taking action against Facebook and social media in general.
Problem is, I haven't seen much memey content related to this so far (though I didn't look much). But it still feels relevant because Facebook and Instagram have a colossal influence on today's Internet (and not just Internet), and the claims are quite damaging.
So, what do you guys think ? Is this story too news-y for a meme database or should it get an entry ?