Frances Haugen, a Facebook civic integrity product manager, provided internal documents to Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz. Haugen subsequently testified before a congressional committee as a whistleblower.
The leaked materials demonstrated the company's inconsistent application of content moderation rules, its role in directing users toward hate groups, and its limited response to apparent human trafficking on the platform. In 2016, an internal Facebook presentation revealed that 64% of all extremist group joins stemmed from the company's recommendation tools.
The platform shifted its algorithm in 2018 to prioritise 'Meaningful Social Interactions' (MSI). This new ranking system gave significantly greater weight to emoji reactions and reshares compared to simple likes.
Zuckerberg promoted this algorithmic change as a means to counteract brand and media content 'crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.' Researchers observed that misinformation, toxicity, and violent content were disproportionately common among reshares.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated, “Is a ranking change the source of the world’s divisions? No.” Furthermore, an internal study indicated that 32 percent of teen girls surveyed who reported body dissatisfaction felt worse after using Instagram.
Following the uproar from the 'Facebook Files' release, Instagram paused its project for children under the age of 13. Roger McNamee published an op-ed in The Guardian in 2017, alleging that Facebook and Google 'threaten public health – and democracy.'
McNamee later released the book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe in 2019.
