Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center loved Frances Haugen when the former Facebook official's whistleblowing revelations about the company were anonymously reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2021 -- but when she went public and it turned out she wasn't a conservative and wouldn't boot right-wing victimhood narratives, the MRC turned against her and used talking points issued by Facebook itself in an attempt to discredit her. Nearly two years later, it's still attacking Haugen. Gabriela Pariseau lashed out at her again in a June 16 post, putting a description of Haugen as a "whistleblower" in scare quotes in the headline:
CNN host Jake Tapper and Facebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen lamented that Facebook has lessened its assault on free speech.
Haugen, a data scientist and former Facebook employee, went on The Lead with Jake Tapperto express concerns that Facebook has not announced its plans to censor users, or in her words, ensure the “safety” of the 2024 elections. Tapper escalated the conversation to a whole new level. “These companies are worth billions … trillions of dollars,” he said. “ They can hire more people to weed out the Nazis and take down misinformation and all that. Why don’t they?” Haugen claimed that Facebook doesn’t because it doesn’t have to, ignoring the fact that Facebook has cut back on many of its unpopular censorship rules.
Remember that what Pariseau considers an "assault on free speech" are actually efforts to stem hate, falsehoods and misinformation. Pariseau continued to dishonest frame content moderation as "censorship":
Haugen also whined about the fact that Facebook cut much of its safety researchers. “I’m deeply concerned that going into 2024 we face much larger risks than we did, say, four years ago or three years ago at this point because Facebook dissolved the team that was responsible for making sure the 2020 election was safe.”
She noted that Twitter owner Elon Musk “fired 75% of the employees” and “fired 75% of the employees” and that shortly after Facebook had layoffs. “[H]e fired over 20,000 employees. Many of my favorite safety researchers are no longer at the company, and not voluntarily. Going into the … 2024 elections, I worry that many of the people who would have kept our elections safe were cut in the name of efficiency.”
Haugen ignores the possibility that Meta is rolling back on unpopular censorship and not simply censorship related to elections. Today the platform scaled back its restrictions against certain content related to COVID-19. “We will take a more tailored approach to our COVID-19 misinformation rules consistent with the Board’s guidance and our existing policies," Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote in an updated Meta blog.
Of course, the spreaders of false or hateful content would think that being moderated is "unpopular," so it's strange Pariseau would insist on making that argument (twice).
Pariseau concluded with more attacks on Haugen: "Haugen’s complaints should come as no surprise. In her whistleblowing days back in 2021, she over the safety of users who she claimed are harmed by misinformation." Aside from links to old attacks that proved nothing, Pariseau offered no evidence that Haugen was wrong about anything.
