Facebook whistleblower complaints claim company MISLED investors about COVID misinformation efforts

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen filed two new SEC complaints this month alleging the company misled investors about the company’s efforts to counter COVID and climate misinformation, redacted documents have revealed. 

The pair of complaints against the social media giant build on a case filed by former employee Haugen last year, that alleges the company, now Meta, knowingly spread false or divisive information.  

Other complaints leveled in the suit were that the company was aware of a negative impact its platform Instagram has on teen girls, and that it helped contribute to violence in developing countries.  

The complaints draw from tens of thousands of internal documents that Haugen took before leaving the company in May.      

The new complaints, uncovered by The Washington Post, allege Facebook made ‘material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors’ about the company’s campaigns to quell misinformation on their platform.

In one of the new filings, ex-Facebook project manager Haugen, who worked for the company’s civic integrity department until she resigned due to concerns the company was prioritizing ‘profits over safety,’ alleges Facebook officials did nothing about climate change misinformation prominently displayed on their site, despite executives calling it a ‘global crisis’ and promising to address it during earnings calls.

The complaint also alleged that the company lacked a clear policy on the issue.

A second, companion complaint further alleges that Facebook lied to the public about progress it made to clamp down on misinformation regarding the Coronavirus on its platform.

In the filing, Haugen, 37, says that while Facebook executives were publicly promoting efforts to remove the COVID misinformation, internal documents taken from the company upon her resignation ‘paint a different story.’ 

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (pictured) speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Brussels in November. Haugen left the company, now Meta, last year alleging it knowingly spread false or divisive information

The complaint points to internal communications between Meta execs regarding anti-vaccine sentiment in comments and internal surveys on their site, showing they were aware of a rapid increase of COVID misinformation on their site, and purposely did nothing to address it.

‘Some investors simply will not want to invest in a company that fails to adequately address such misinformation and then engages in misstatements and omissions on the topic,’ one of Haugen’s complaints read.

The accusation, if true, would mean Meta knowingly lied to the public over the past year about efforts to remove the false information.

Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri, meanwhile, has asserted the company has been and continues to remove contentious claims about vaccines from their site, saying staffers have worked to spread accurate and ‘authoritative information’ about climate change, race, and COVID and vaccines 

‘There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to stopping the spread of misinformation, but we’re committed to building new tools and policies to combat it,’ Pusateri told The Post Friday.

Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last year, after Haugen went public with her claims against the company, remaining anonymous until a bombshell interview with ’60 Minutes’ in October.

In the interview, Haugen, who had held data managing roles with Silicon Valley giants Google and Yelp and helped found the dating app Hinge before being recruited by Facebook in 2019, said she had grown alarmed by company’s repeated attempts put its own interests over the public’s, and decided last spring to act.

Iowa-born Haugen then resigned from the company, taking tens of thousands of pages of Facebook’s internal research with her. 

‘I’ve seen a bunch of social networks and it was substantially worse at Facebook than what I had seen before,’ Haugen said. ‘Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.’

After leaving the company, Haugen contacted John Tye, founder of nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid, to help her build a case for the company, to which he agreed.

In August, after lawmakers wrote a letter to Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, asking he provide internal research regarding the social and emotional well-being of children on Instagram, Haugen contacted the lawmakers and shared with them some of the documents. 

With the new information provided by Haugen, the lawmakers announced two hearings focused on Facebook’s negative impact on children, after the company responded to the lawmaker’s query with a letter that touted its image-sharing apps’ positive effects on children, while ignoring questions regarding its internal research. 

Haugen has since appeared before US Congress, EU officials, and, most recently, Australian parliament calling for transparency regarding the social media giant’s practices, and the harmful effect those practices may be having on its users.

‘As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable,’ says Haugen of the nearly $1 trillion company, whose market value took an unprecedented hit earlier this year.

‘The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed,’ Haugen said.