TIME magazine has featured Mark Zuckerberg on its cover in its latest issue amid claims Facebook fuels division, harms children and puts profits over safety.

The cover photo comes with an illustration of a phone app deletion icon and a seemingly simple question - "Delete 'Facebook'?" - and two options - "Cancel" or "Delete".

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team, this week told US lawmakers how the company pushed for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety. She said Facebook had also done too little to prevent its platform from being used by people planning violence.

The TIME cover article, published on the magazine's website, is titled "How Facebook Forced a Reckoning by Shutting Down the Team That Put People Ahead of Profits".

The article speaks extensively of Facebook's civic integrity team and points out to how the social media giant's decisions alienated many members of the critical team that fights misinformation and hate. Facebook dissolved the team in December 2020, which eventually led Frances Haugen to blow the whistle.

"Whatever the future direction of Facebook, it is clear that discontent has been brewing internally. Haugen's document leak and testimony have already sparked calls for stricter regulation and improved the quality of public debate about social media's influence," writes Billy Perrigo, the author of the article.

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg hit back at the whistleblower's claims, saying they are "just not true".

"The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical," Zuckerberg wrote in a note to Facebook employees that he then posted on his account.

"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."

Source: NDTV 

BDST: 1330 HRS, OCT 09, 2021
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