Mark Zuckerberg's full response re FB whistleblower testimony
"Hey everyone: it's been quite a week, and I wanted to share some
thoughts with all of you.
First, the SEV that took down all our services yesterday was the worst
outage we've had in years. We've spent the past 24 hours debriefing
how we can strengthen our systems against this kind of failure. This
was also a reminder of how much our work matters to people. The deeper
concern with an outage like this isn't how many people switch to
competitive services or how much money we lose, but what it means for
the people who rely on our services to communicate with loved ones,
run their businesses, or support their communities.
Second, now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the
public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent
coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we
know. We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental
health. It's difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and
our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don't
recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.
Many of the claims don't make any sense. If we wanted to ignore
research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to
understand these important issues in the first place? If we didn't
care about fighting harmful content, then why would we employ so many
more people dedicated to this than any other company in our space --
even ones larger than us? If we wanted to hide our results, why would
we have established an industry-leading standard for transparency and
reporting on what we're doing? And if social media were as responsible
for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing
polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in
many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the
world?
At the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize
profit over safety and well-being. That's just not true. For example,
one move that has been called into question is when we introduced the
Meaningful Social Interactions change to News Feed. This change showed
fewer viral videos and more content from friends and family -- which
we did knowing it would mean people spent less time on Facebook, but
that research suggested it was the right thing for people's
well-being. Is that something a company focused on profits over people
would do? The argument that we deliberately push content that makes
people angry for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads,
and advertisers consistently tell us they don't want their ads next to
harmful or angry content. And I don't know any tech company that sets
out to build products that make people angry or depressed. The moral,
business and product incentives all point in the opposite direction.
But of everything published, I'm particularly focused on the questions
raised about our work with kids. I've spent a lot of time reflecting
on the kinds of experiences I want my kids and others to have online,
and it's very important to me that everything we build is safe and
good for kids.The reality is that young people use technology. Think
about how many school-age kids have phones. Rather than ignoring this,
technology companies should build experiences that meet their needs
while also keeping them safe. We're deeply committed to doing
industry-leading work in this area. A good example of this work is
Messenger Kids, which is widely recognized as better and safer than
alternatives.
We've also worked on bringing this kind of age-appropriate experience
with parental controls for Instagram too. But given all the questions
about whether this would actually be better for kids, we've paused
that project to take more time to engage with experts and make sure
anything we do would be helpful.
Like many of you, I found it difficult to read the mischaracterization
of the research into how Instagram affects young people. As we wrote
in our Newsroom post explaining this: "The research actually
demonstrated that many teens we heard from feel that using Instagram
helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and
issues teenagers have always faced. In fact, in 11 of 12 areas on the
slide referenced by the Journal -- including serious areas like
loneliness, anxiety, sadness and eating issues -- more teenage girls
who said they struggled with that issue also said Instagram made those
difficult times better rather than worse."But when it comes to young
people's health or well-being, every negative experience matters. It
is incredibly sad to think of a young person in a moment of distress
who, instead of being comforted, has their experience made worse. We
have worked for years on industry-leading efforts to help people in
these moments and I'm proud of the work we've done. We constantly use
our research to improve this work further.
Similar to balancing other social issues, I don't believe private
companies should make all of the decisions on their own. That's why we
have advocated for updated internet regulations for several years now.
I have testified in Congress multiple times and asked them to update
these regulations. I've written op-eds outlining the areas of
regulation we think are most important related to elections, harmful
content, privacy, and competition.
We're committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the
right body to assess tradeoffs between social equities is our
democratically elected Congress. For example, what is the right age
for teens to be able to use internet services? How should internet
services verify people's ages? And how should companies balance teens'
privacy while giving parents visibility into their activity?
If we're going to have an informed conversation about the effects of
social media on young people, it's important to start with a full
picture. We're committed to doing more research ourselves and making
more research publicly available.
That said, I'm worried about the incentives that are being set here.
We have an industry-leading research program so that we can identify
important issues and work on them. It's disheartening to see that work
taken out of context and used to construct a false narrative that we
don't care. If we attack organizations making an effort to study their
impact on the world, we're effectively sending the message that it's
safer not to look at all, in case you find something that could be
held against you. That's the conclusion other companies seem to have
reached, and I think that leads to a place that would be far worse for
society. Even though it might be easier for us to follow that path,
we're going to keep doing research because it's the right thing to do.
I know it's frustrating to see the good work we do get
mischaracterized, especially for those of you who are making important
contributions across safety, integrity, research and product. But I
believe that over the long term if we keep trying to do what's right
and delivering experiences that improve people's lives, it will be
better for our community and our business. I've asked leaders across
the company to do deep dives on our work across many areas over the
next few days so you can see everything that we're doing to get there.
When I reflect on our work, I think about the real impact we have on
the world -- the people who can now stay in touch with their loved
ones, create opportunities to support themselves, and find community.
This is why billions of people love our products. I'm proud of
everything we do to keep building the best social products in the
world and grateful to all of you for the work you do here every day."
- - -
Request invite to my private discussion forum: [email protected]
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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