Facebook unlikely to change if Mark Zuckerberg remains the CEO, says whistleblower Frances Haugen

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has urged the recently rebranded social media's CEO Mark Zuckerberg to step down and allow change rather than devoting resources to a rebrand. Haugen was speaking at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon. She said that Facebook's parent company, rebranded Meta, is unlikely to change if Zuckerberg remains the CEO. Haugen said that she believes Facebook will be stronger with someone who is willing to focus on safety.

"I think it is unlikely the company will change if (Mark Zuckerberg) remains the CEO," Haugen said. "Maybe it's a chance for someone else to take the reinsFacebook would be stronger with someone who was willing to focus on safety," she added.

She also noted that Zuckerberg had taken an unconscionable decision to invest in its metaverse concept instead of focussing on fixing its current problems. "Over and over Facebook chooses expansion and new areas instead of sticking the landing on what they've already done," Haugen told an animated crowd that frequently burst into applause as she spoke.

Zuckerberg on Thursday announced that Facebook, as a corporate name, will now be called Meta. The company describes it as "the next chapter for the company." The rebrand focuses on building the "metaverse," a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet.

Last month, Haugen had presented internal documents that went to Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and The Wall Street Journal. Haugen had noted that she had empathy for Zuckerberg. "And Mark has never set out to make a hateful platform. But he has allowed choices to be made where the side effects of those choices are that hateful, polarizing content gets more distribution and more reach," she said.

She had noted that Facebook realised that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, and will click on fewer ads, making less money. "I've seen a bunch of social networks and it was substantially worse at Facebook than what I had seen before. Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety," Haugen had said.

Zuckerberg had denied the claims made by Haugen and had noted that his company cares deeply about issues like safety, well-being, and mental health. "At the most basic level, I think most of us just don't recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted," he wrote in a Facebook post. Zuckerberg also said that fighting harmful content was a top priority for Facebook.