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Canada, B.C. legislation would tackle ‘toxic’ online products: Facebook whistleblower
A woman who blew the whistle about Facebook ignoring potential harms to users of the social media platform says proposed laws by Canada and B.C. have promise to hold tech companies to account for profiting off harmful content.
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, says big tech companies such as Facebook’s parent company Meta need to be held accountable for the harms their products cause while profiting at handsome margins of up to 30 per cent.
Haugen, who testified before the U.S. Congress in 2021 about Facebook’s refusal to mitigate harmful content in favour of profit, says American government lawsuits were “transformative” in revealing information about societal impacts of harmful online content.
She says B.C. crafted the law using information brought to light in U.S. lawsuits, and she looks forward to seeing how the province will use it.