For years, we have known that predatory, profit-at-all-cost, ethics-lacking business models are destructive, and certainly, since Jonathan Taplan’s important 2018 book Move Fast and Break Things. The latest 60 Minutes expose illuminates further. See: Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public:
Her name is Frances Haugen. That is a fact that Facebook has been anxious to know since last month when an anonymous former employee filed complaints with federal law enforcement. The complaints say Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest—but the company hides what it knows. One complaint alleges that Facebook’s Instagram harms teenage girls. What makes Haugen’s complaints unprecedented is the trove of private Facebook research she took when she quit in May. The documents appeared first, last month, in the Wall Street Journal. But tonight, Frances Haugen is revealing her identity to explain why she became the Facebook whistleblower.
Here is a direct video link.
There is a common theme here: whether it’s executives, politicians and policymakers enriching themselves on non-public information or wealthy people and their advisors benefiting from government programs and subsidies while hiding their assets and income from taxes owed. A lack of integrity, ethics, and personal accountability erode our social and economic fabric from the top down. History warns that this costs all of us in the end.
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