The Washington Post: Why is the current Facebook scandal bigger than its predecessors?

The former director of Facebook's content management, Frances Haugen, says she loves Facebook, but the company doesn't share those feelings.

This so-called love is the key to understanding the different complex situation that Facebook is going through and the huge amount of its documents that were published on the air, not to mention other scandals that have gone through the company previously.

This is what Molly Roberts, editor of the Washington Post, sees in an article entitled "Why is this Facebook scandal bigger than any other scandal that has gone through the company?"

Roberts points out that the company's dirty secrets, small and large, have been published before but have not had the effect of Haugen's testimony and its revelations, as they barely made it to the pages of some major newspapers, and sometimes called for congressional hearings, as it did In the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

But Haugen's whistle - and the words to the writer - was heard around the world louder than ever, and it still resonates today.

That's because her story combines the vernacular style of a whistleblower with the more modern spirit of Silicon Valley.

Haugen's credibility

"She's our hero, frustrated as we are all by the behavior of a company that was supposed to help us connect but instead rips society apart. She's also frustrated at her inability to improve things from within," says Roberts.

The writer notes that Haugen left a message on her computer at work on her last day at Facebook after submitting her resignation, saying, "I don't hate Facebook. I love Facebook and I want to save it."

The author believes that Haugen's love for Facebook distinguished her from the stereotypical whistleblower and gave a measure of credibility to her testimony against her, as the whistleblower is often viewed with a mixture of feelings of contempt and admiration for their disloyalty to the institutions in which they worked and reported.

Also, the reporter’s view that he is right, and everyone around him and above him in the organization or company is wrong is something that is sometimes seen as narcissism, and this mistake did not fall into Haugen, who does not see herself as better than Facebook, but rather believes that Facebook can be better Or at least she can try.

The writer drew attention to another dimension that reinforced the credibility of Haugen's testimony against Facebook and its position on it, which is that the stories of betrayal often benefit from the feelings of guilt-tainted anxiety felt by the hero of the story, otherwise they do not contain enough evidence to consider it betrayal, so Haugen's affirmation of her closeness and love for the company contributed which criticize it to give it more credibility.

The writer says that everything in what Haugen recounted involves pitting Facebook against itself, against its values, its treasures of information, and even its words.

This time, the company cannot claim that “external opponents armed with an agenda and not based on concrete facts are committing mistakes against the company out of ignorance.” The rejection came from within and based on inside information.

And the writer concludes that Facebook now appears to be sinking, precisely because Haugen, the devoted lover of the company, has told the whole world that she wants to save it.