News

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen calls for urgent external regulation

Mark Zuckerberg “has unilateral control over 3 billion people” due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech company’s management and reduce the harm being done to society.

Haugen, a former Facebook employee who released tens of thousands of damaging documents about its inner workings, travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing and gave qualified backing to UK government proposals to regulate social media platforms and make them take some responsibility for content on their sites.

The company’s internal culture prioritised profitability over its impact on the wider world, said Haugen, and “there is no will at the top to make sure these systems are run in an adequately safe way”. She added: “Until we bring in a counterweight, these things will be operated for the shareholders’ interest and not the public interest.”

She warned that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook and used by millions of children worldwide, may never be safe for pre-teens.

Addressing a group of MPs and peers on Monday, Haugen said much of the blame for the world’s increasingly polarised politics lay with social networks and the radicalising impact of services such as Facebook Groups.

These can encourage small and intense communities that breed conspiracy theories, she said. “I am deeply concerned that they have made a product that can lead people away from their real communities and isolate them in these rabbit holes and these filter bubbles. What you find is that when people are sent targeted misinformation to a community, it can make it hard to reintegrate into wider society because now you don’t have shared facts.”

Amid growing concerns about the impact of Instagram on the mental health and body image of teenagers, Haugen said Facebook’s own research likened the app’s young users to addicts who feel unable to step away from a service that makes them unhappy.

“The last thing they see at night is someone being cruel to them. The first thing they see in the morning is a hateful statement and that is just so much worse.” She claimed the company’s own research found Instagram was more dangerous than other social media such as TikTok and Snapchat because the platform is focused on “social comparison about bodies, about people’s lifestyles, and that’s what ends up being worse for kids”.

She added: “I’m deeply worried it may not be possible to make Instagram safe for a 14-year-old and I sincerely doubt it’s possible to make it safe for a 10-year-old.”

The whistleblower also urged Facebook to make it harder to share material, in order to slow the sharing of hate and disinformation, while also pushing more content from people’s family and friends into users’ newsfeeds: “Moving to systems that are human-scaled is the safest way to design social media. We liked social media before we had an algorithmic feed.”

One of her particular concerns is how Facebook can “mislead” the public into thinking that it is prioritising the tackling of disinformation outside the English-speaking world, while highlighting its impact on societal divisions in Myanmar and Ethiopia. She suggested that tools designed to reduce harm in English-language posts may be less effective in the UK because they were developed using American English.

Facebook’s ownership is structured so that Zuckerberg, as founder of the company, has a special class of share that means he alone ultimately controls the business. This gives him enormous control over the eponymous social network as well as Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp.

Haugen said the company was full of “good, kind, conscientious people”, but they were working with bad incentives set by management and the requirement to maximise financial returns to shareholders. “Facebook has been unwilling to accept even little slivers of profit being sacrificed for safety. And that’s not acceptable.”

She said there were few incentives inside the company to raise flaws and deal with the side-effects of its business model. “Facebook never set out to prioritise polarising and decisive content; it just happened to be a side-effect of the choices they did make.”

Speaking in an earnings call with investors on Monday, Zuckerberg spoke to the document leak but did not address the contents directly, saying the issues the company is facing “aren’t primarily about social media” but relating to “polarization [that] started rising in the US before I was born”.

“My view on what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to create a false picture about our company,” he added, as the company reported a quarterly profit of $9bn.

A Facebook spokesperson said: “At the heart of these stories is a premise which is false. Yes, we’re a business and we make profit, but the idea that we do so at the expense of people’s safety or wellbeing misunderstands where our own commercial interests lie. The truth is we’ve invested $13bn and have over 40,000 people to do one job: keep people safe on Facebook.”

Education

TASUED Convocation: Abiodun Gifts Three Best Graduating Students N2m Each

L-R: Best graduating student (2021-2022) from the Department of Biology, Elibe Patricia; best graduating student (2020-2021), from the Department of Mathematics, Sunday Oluwafemi; Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, best graduating student from the Department of Mathematics (2022-2023), Sanyaolu Mercy and the First-Class student of Mathematics under the indigenous work-study program, Okewale Nelson during the 13th,14th and 15th combined convocation of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijebu-Ode on Tuesday.

The three best graduating students of the Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijebu-Ode, representing the 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic years, have been awarded N2 million each by Governor Dapo Abiodun for their academic feats.

The cash award was announced on Tuesday by the Governor during the 13th,14th, and 15th convocation ceremonies of the institution.

He also announced N500,000 to the best graduating students in each of the colleges for the three years from 2020 to 2023.

The recipients are Sunday Oluwafemi, with a GPA of 4.89 (2020/2021); Obadina Patricia Elibe with GPA of 4.89 (2021/2022) and Mercy Deborah Sanyaolu with GPA of 4.86 (2022/2023).

The governor announced a cash of N250,000 to a first-class student, Okewale Nelson, who, despite taking advantage of the ingenious work-study program of the institution, was able to earn a first class degree in mathematics.

Abiodun disclosed that the feat recorded by Nelson has shown that working while studying is not a deterrent to academic success, calling on other students to take advantage of the program and go the same way.

The governor, while empathizing with the students over a recent robbery attack on some of their colleagues residing off campus, said that his administration would root out those obstructing the peace being enjoyed in the state.

He noted that his government remains and maintains a zero tolerance policy for criminal activities, even as he warned of dire consequences on anyone caught disrupting the peace of the state.

Governor Abiodun urged the graduating students to reciprocate the gift of learning and character modelling that the institution has bestowed on them, noting that his administration remains committed to creating an enabling environment for growth and development aimed at making the state economically stable for all.

Abiodun promised that his administration would continue to work diligently to the purpose of utilising the vocational courses acquired during their time in school.

He charged the graduands not to allow the fear of failure to deter them from taking the opportunities, noting that the path ahead may be demanding, but challenges are stepping stone to greatness.

In his address, the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwole Banjo disclosed that 12,700 students graduated in the 13th,14th, and 15th combined convocation ceremony, while 329 graduated in the postgraduate college.

He also said that 113 students graduated with first-class honours.

In his remarks, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council; Prof Rahamon Bello, noted that the institution has developed a reputation as being dynamic, accessible and responsive to change.

News

Ekiti Govt Sues Chef Dammy’s Pastor, Demands N10m Damages

The Directorate of Citizens Rights (DCR) from the Ministry of Justice in Ekiti State has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ekiti-born Damilola Adeparusi, popularly known as Chef Dammy, against Pastor Jeremiah Adegoke and the Ekiti State Police Command for alleged infringement of the chef’s rights.

In the suit filed at the State High Court and marked HAD|23, DCR also seeks compensation of N10 million for damages on behalf of the student chef.

The DCR also asked the court to enforce a restraining order to prevent Adegoke and the police from re-arresting Chef Dammy.

After attempting a cook-a-thon challenge to break the Guinness World Record in June, Chef Dammy rose to fame.

The lawsuit was filed barely a week after Chef Dammy was reportedly arrested on the order of Adegoke, who was her pastor.

Adegoke is the head pastor of Spirit Word Global Mission, an Ekiti-based church that reportedly sponsored Chef Dammy’s record-making cook-a-thon.

The controversy between Chef Dammy and her pastor started in October, after the 24-year-old raised alarm over alleged relentless threats and intimidation from individuals whom she tagged “people of God” and her pastor.

The 300-level Mass Communication student of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), said that she had been threatened and bullied, making her live in constant fear for her life.

Although the source of the feud between the chef and her once-supportive pastor is still vague, their dispute appears to have been a fallout of the cook-a-thon.

Following Chef Dammy’s public outcry, Adegoke, in a letter signed by his lawyers, Bisayo Sule & Co. legal practitioners, dated October 23, 2023, demanded a retraction of the alleged defamatory statement on social media, an apology to two widely read national dailies, and the payment of a sum of N22 million for damages.

He gave Chef Dammy seven days to comply with the demands or risk being sued.

However, in the suit filed by Olugbenga Akinlabi, the deputy director of citizens rights in DCR, Chef Dammy, was named as the applicant; Adegoke and Ajewole Samuel, the Ekiti State Commissioner of Police, and the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 17 Akure, were named respondents.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the continued harassment, molestation, threat of arrest, and intimidation by the pastor and the Nigerian police infringe on the applicant’s fundamental human rights

News

Alleged Bribery: EFCC Probes $54,230 Handed Over by Customs

The Lagos Zonal Commander of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Assistant Commander of the EFCC, ACE I Michael T. Wetkas, has assured the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, of further investigation into an alleged bribery of its officials to the tune of $54,230 (Fifty Four Thousand, Two Hundred and Thirty United States of American Dollars).

He gave the assurance on Tuesday, November 28, 2023, while receiving the money handed over to the EFCC by the Customs Area Comptroller, Tincan Island Port, Apapa, Lagos, Comptroller Dera Nnadi.

Wetkas, who thanked the leadership of the NCS for the sustained collaboration between the two agencies, assured of greater support in the fight against corruption and fraud-related offences.

Speaking earlier, Nnadi said: “We always look forward to collaborating with other agencies, one of which is the EFCC. The money we are handing over to you today is proceeds of crime that emanated from the import of illicit drugs. An attempt to illegally release the drugs was resisted by the Customs officials. There was also further attempts by the importers and their collaborators to compromise officers of the NCS by bribing them with the sum of Fifty Four Thousand, Two Hundred and Thirty United States Dollars, which was resisted”.

He also disclosed that, “the importer, agents as well as the containers have been handed over to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, for further investigation”.

Nnadi also used the occasion to seek more robust collaboration with the EFCC as well as other law enforcement agencies in the fight against smuggling within the command.

Visit www.efcc.gov.ng for more stories