Data Scientist Frances Haugen revealed herself as the whistleblower behind the major exposure of the inner workings at Facebook.
Prior to 60 Minutes airing on Sunday, Haugen, a former Facebook employee has kept herself secret. She has shared thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents with the media and federal law enforcement.
Recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal had already put Facebook in the spotlight. Haugen shared thousands of Facebook documents with the newspaper that went into the creation of the Facebook Files series.
On Tuesday, she will testify before Congress and call on the federal government to put regulations in place. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) agrees.
So far the newspaper has revealed how anti-COVID-19 vaccine information flourished on Facebook. It also reported how separate rules allegedly apply to celebrities and politicians on the site. Facebook allowed VIP users to, for a time, avoid penalties for bad behavior, according to the report.
“That they get the fortitude and the motivation to actually go put those regulations into place,” Haugen said.
“Facebook over and over again has shown it chooses profit over safety,” she said during the interview on Sunday.