JAKARTA - In her first public speech since she leaked damaging documents about how Facebook works, whistleblower Frances Haugen urged her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to step back and allow change rather than devote resources to changing Facebook's image.
"I don't think the company will change if [Mark Zuckerberg] remains CEO," Haugen said in a packed arena on Monday November 1 on the eve of the opening of the Web Summit, a technology festival that draws tens of thousands of people to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.
The former Facebook product manager responded positively to the question of whether Zuckerberg should resign, adding: "Perhaps this is an opportunity for someone else to take the reins... Facebook will be stronger with someone willing to focus on safety."
The social network, with nearly 3 billion users, changed its name to Meta last week, in a rebranding focused on building a “metaverse”, a shared virtual environment that is at stake for the successor to the mobile internet.
But early adopters of the cyberspace known as the metaverse have denounced Facebook's rebranding as an attempt to capitalize on the growing buzz over the concept that wasn't created to distract from recent negativity.
Commenting on the rebranding, Haugen said it doesn't make sense given the unaddressed security issues.
"Many times Facebook has opted for new expansions and areas instead of sticking to what they've already done," Haugen told the animated crowd that often applauded as he spoke.
Facebook's announcement comes amid strong criticism from lawmakers and regulators over the company's business practices -- particularly its immense market power, algorithmic decisions, and policing of abuses on its services.
The social media network, which operates a dual class division structure in which Zuckerberg and a small group of investors control the company, has retaliated by saying documents leaked by Haugen were used to paint a "false picture."
Haugen told British and US lawmakers last month that Facebook would spark more violent unrest around the world unless it curbed its algorithms that encourage extreme, divisive content and prey on vulnerable demographics to keep them rolling.
"The main problem is that the platform's security foundation is based on language-based monitoring of content, which doesn't scale to all countries where Facebook operates," Haugen said.
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