THE FACEBOOK FILES: An analysis of the PR response to the Facebook Whistleblower situation
Backstory
In October 2021, A whistleblower named Frances Haugen came forward after sharing documents containing details of Facebook’s internal workings with Jeff Horowitz from the Wall Street Journal and eventually making it to congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021). Before leaving Facebook after nearly two years, Haugen worked at Google, Yelp, and Pinterest, making her somewhat of a seasoned professional.
Upon entering Facebook, Haugen was assigned to a team for civic misinformation, and later counter espionage. She assumed that a company this size would already be developed in their work on counteracting misinformation but found that she was given only four people with little experience despite Facebook’s resources. Haugen professed that her team was not being set up for success but was told “the expectation of Facebook is that you accomplish the impossible with far less resources than anyone would expect”, so that’s exactly what she did (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021). The civic integrity team had to work with the little resources they had while uncovering platform issues related to user safety that needed immediate addressing.
After encountering a plethora of concerns during her time at Facebook, Frances Haugen collected company data along with reviewing thousands of internal documents over several weeks. Here’s what caught her eye:
Lack of equality on the platform (The elite are preferred)
Teen mental health and body image struggles soaring
Human Trafficking and cartels using the platform
The algorithm fostering discord and misinformation
The challenges of artificial intelligence
On December 2nd, 2020, the civic misinformation team was being dismantled and so was Haugen’s trust in the company. She believes this is “restructuring” happened because the team was uncovering information that Facebook did not want to go public. Facebook declined to comment on the reorganization of the civic integrity team (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).
Weeks after the civic misinformation team was disbanded, the January 6th insurrection happened at the capitol in Washington D.C. and Facebook became a topic of discussion. At this point, Facebook took “break the glass” measures again; Break the glass is a safety system with an emergency turn off abilities for things to grow and go viral; It lowers engagement rates to stop the spread of info.
Frances knew the pattern of these events because “it's just flowing freely across our internal version of Facebook. It's called Workplace. People were putting up reports of what was happening. There's literally a report, they're called Break the Glass Measures. Literally when the insurrection happened, there was a document I saw where it listed here are all these Break the Glass Measures that we had on for the election to keep it safe. And as soon as the election passed, we turn them off and now we're turning them back on because clearly things have gone off the rails. Facebook knew that there were dangerous trade-offs they were making before the election, which is why they chose safer choices for the election. And as soon as they had passed that moment, they get rid of Civic Integrity. They turn off these things that would make Facebook grow slower. And as a result, there was documentation that a lot of the Stop the Steal groups (groups that believe the 2020 election was stolen) and all those things, they grew so fast because of choices Facebook made to prioritize growth over safety” (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).
Toward the end of her time at Facebook, Ms. Haugen said, she realized that people outside the company—including lawmakers and regulators—should know what she had discovered. On May 17, shortly before 7 p.m., she logged on for the last time and typed her final message into Workplace’s search bar to try to explain her motives, which included her sentiment of wanting to make social media a better place (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).
Haugen loves Facebook and wants to save it. She states that Facebook has repeatedly mislead the public about working on misinformation, hate and violence and that the company can change but chooses not to. They choose company profits and engagement over safety of users. “The company intentionally hides vital information from the public, from the U.S. government and from governments around the world,” she told the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection (Farivar et al., 2021). “If I could only do one thing, I would improve transparency” (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).
She goes on to elaborate, “At a minimum, we need radically more transparency, and we need to, as a society, think about how can we not be dependent on whistle blowers like me to get basic information out of the company. Facebook has told us, "You can either have growth or engagement." If we make it safer, it won't be as engaging. And now we actually have numbers saying, guess what? Facebook is trading off very small decreases in engagement for huge consequences in misinformation and hate speech and violence. Now we have those things documented (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).”
While the Whistleblower had her say, so did Facebook. Between both parties as well as the media, multiple public relations theories make their way into the narrative. The main theories that apply to this case are:
Situational Crisis Communication Theory Perspective
Situational Crisis Communication Theory was proposed by Timothy Coombs in 2007. SCCT states that by evaluating the crisis at hand, it will help the organization craft and address the publics in a way that puts them in neutral or positive light. The initial response is what shapes the organization’s approach to the crisis, and Facebook did not completely succeed at this task.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone wrote in a delayed statement, “Every day our teams have to balance protecting the right of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place. We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true (Horwitz, 2021).” This response may inquire the public to think of the company’s big behind the scenes work, but with all the documents that Frances Haugen presented, it’s hard to understand what sacrifices had to be made regarding the safety of users when making decisions at Facebook. Ultimately, it’s the public’s emotions rule this theory: stakeholders will attribute responsibility to the organization. Actions of the public can make or break an organization’s reputation.
Zuckerberg also pushed back against Haugen’s allegations in a Facebook post on Oct. 5. “At the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and well-being. That’s just not true,” he said (Farivar et al., 2021). He also said Facebook was being punished for trying to study its impact on the world and that some things were taken out of context. To many audiences, this response was an empty rebuttal with no back up information to show. If it’s not true, then why doesn’t Facebook prove it by making their data public and presenting it proudly to congress and the SEC?
The SCCT theory states that by understanding the crisis at hand, you can control how the public receives your control of the situation and Mark Zuckerberg definitely did not wholly understand the public relations crisis his company was encountering. This theory has three “clusters”: victim, accidental and intentional, and Facebook’s choice of a victim perspective did not get them the image they were looking for in the public eye. Such a powerful company can’t succeed at playing the victim card when it’s well known how capable they are of controlling what happens on a platform.
Having knowledge of a crisis, understanding both sides, analyzing the outcomes, taking well-being into account, reading the room, and preparing for what comes next are a few checklist items that Facebook needs to work on when it comes to Situational Crisis Communication Theory.
Corporate Social Responsibility Theory Perspective
Corporate Social Responsibility refers to the concept of organizations taking social responsibility through initiatives that will benefit from the community around them. These initiatives include running the business fairly and honestly regarding employee and customer well-being. It’s pertinent that a company is involved in improving the conditions of the community and environment of which it operates.
CSR theory applies to this case because of issues Facebook is having with concept like misinformation, platform inequality, illegal user activity, mental health and body image. One reason these problems exist is due to the Facebook algorithm. A study posted internally in December 2019 said Facebook’s algorithms “are not neutral” but instead value content that will get a reaction, any reaction, with the result that “outrage and misinformation are more likely to be viral.” “We know that many things that generate engagement on our platform leave users divided and depressed,” wrote the researcher, whose name was redacted (Farivar et al., 2021). Facebook knows that things which generate engagement on their platform leave users divided and depressed, yet they still choose to prioritize engagement basked ranking over safety of its users which is a sentiment that Frances Haugen pointed out on the WSJ Podcast. Ms. Haugen elaborated further by saying, “One thing that I really, really want to emphasize is that a lot of the problems that are outlined here are not Facebook problems. They are problems with engagement-based ranking. That’s when we allow algorithms and AI to choose what we get to see and don't see, we need that same kind of system for all social media companies, because that's the only way we're going to get systems that are even minimally safe enough” (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021).
Since these algorithms affect the safety of users and employees of Facebook, the company should try to fix them, right? In response to a Wall Street Journal story about Instagram, Instagram head Adam Mosseri believed making fixes could make things worse unintentionally (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021). While this is an important thought, where is the proof of how fixes would make things worse? A divertive response from Facebook stated, “Is a ranking change the source of the world’s divisions? No. Research shows certain partisan divisions in our society have been growing for many decades, long before platforms like Facebook even existed” (Farivar et al., 2021). If corporate social responsibility is important to Facebook and it’s other platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, then they should prove it to their publics by easing up on platform growth goals to prioritize current safety concerns. Once more people decide that Facebook’s social responsibility is not up to standard, they will stop using the platform, which will lead to an even bigger loss of revenue along with the gain of an unflattering reputation.
Agenda Setting Theory
The agenda setting theory is broken down into two major levels. The first level is typically used by researchers to study media usage and the influence that media has on the public. The second level focuses on how the media thinks the public should and will perceive the nature of the issues at hand.
When it comes to agenda setting in the media, Facebook claims that Haugen and media coverage had misrepresented the kind of work they do within the company. Facebook’s public relations chief said Haugen’s disclosures were an “orchestrated ‘gotcha’ campaign” guided by her public relations advisers, even though Frances Haugen began the endeavor of collecting this information before leaving the social media site let alone having any kind of public relations team at the time. The media, such as the New York Times, NBC, and of course the Wall Street Journal, merely used their networks to communicate the information relayed from the internal documents presented by Ms. Haugen, but Facebook took it as a story spin even though the problems uncovered were all known to be valid.
“A curated selection out of millions of documents at Facebook can in no way be used to draw fair conclusions about us,” Facebook’s vice president for communications, John Pinette, said in a tweet ahead of the release of the Haugen disclosures (Farivar et al., 2021). While this may have truth, it is important to note that Frances Haugen came forward with around 100,000 documents that held information related to misinformation, health and safety; three main components to life that people take very seriously. The media does not need a million documents to project the right story to its publics; all you need is one.
A message from Andrea Saul, a director of policy communications, was sent out internally to Facebook employees and then eventually went public to the media. “We are increasingly hearing about reporter requests to employees to discuss Frances Haugen and people’s sentiments about her,” Saul said in a memo viewed by The Times. “We have had employees specifically ask if they can defend the company by referencing experiences they had with her. PLEASE DO NOT ENGAGE in these conversations. “Disparaging her personally is not right, it’s not allowed, and it’s not who we are as a company,” Saul wrote. This memo came out after the reveal of the whistleblower which brings up important questions like was this information leaked purposefully so Facebook could gain back respectability through the media? Could this memo have been sent out with the intention that it may go public? Was this a precautionary warning for those people on Haugen’s side?
In the situation, Facebook did not seem to properly utilize agenda setting theory within their own public relations department despite the risk of publics or the media perceiving hundreds of messages related to the company. With all the public issues logged within the company from past years, you would think Facebook would be more concerned about keeping their personal agendas and values in check. The media is in a constant cycle and there is no way for such a high-profile company to escape it.
Outcome and Conclusion
At the end of her interview with the WSJ Podcast, Frances Haugen made her intentions clear by saying, “I want the employees at Facebook to know that I did this because I really believe that solving problems together is better solving them alone. And that Facebook has been struggling because a lot of the problems it needs to solve are about conflicts of interest, right? Conflicts of interest between public safety and profits and growth. Those are problems that Facebook cannot solve alone. And that once it starts solving those problems together, it'll be so much more constructive and the path forward will be so much easier” (Linebaugh & Haugen, 2021). With Haugen’s sentiment of still wanting to save the social platform even though it’s in need of major safety regulation changes, Facebook could not find an excuse to further disparage her in interviews responding to the uncovered files.
Since December 2021, Facebook has had a weirdly convenient outage (October 2021), a hearing on Capitol Hill (October 2021) , and a rebrand (now Meta). As Frances Haugen keeps working with lawmakers to create a safer social media space, Facebook is still under investigation while also being sued; not a great look for Mark Zuckerberg. While questions need answering and changes need to be made one thing still holds true, everyone just wants to make social media safer and hopefully Facebook does too.
When it comes to Situational Crisis Communications theory, Corporate Social Responsibility theory, and Agenda Setting theory, Facebook should have done a better job utilizing their public relations tools to improve tactics related to all three theories. When they learn more about the situational crises at hand, take to account the importance of corporate responsibility, and understand agenda setting, then they will elevate their public relations intelligence while benefitting Facebook as a whole.
References
Linebaugh, K., & Haugen, F. (2021, October 3). The Facebook Files, Part 6: The Whistleblower. WSJ Podcasts. other, The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-facebook-files-part-6-the-whistleblower/b311b3d8-b50a-425f-9eb7-12a9c4278acd?mod=article_inline.
Horwitz, J. (2021, October 3). The Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, says she wants to fix the company, not harm it. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 20, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-says-she-wants-to-fix-the-company-not-harm-it-11633304122
Farivar, C., Ingram, D., Solon, O., & Zadrozny, B. (2021, October 25). Facebook whistleblower documents detail deep look at Facebook. NBCNews.com. Retrieved October 20, 2021, from https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-whistleblower-documents-detail-deep-look-facebook-rcna3580
Hamilton , I. A. (2021, October 6). Mark Zuckerberg says whistleblower's claims that Facebook places profit over people 'don't make any sense.' Read his full response to the whistleblower's testimony. Business Insider. Retrieved 2021, from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2579331351?accountid=14214&parentSessionId=KAIjclFc1r34TEa%2FD0t6gJGx8xDz7RssBFiTi21eUSI%3D&pq-origsite=summon
Glazer, E. (2021, October 6). Mark Zuckerberg breaks silence on Facebook whistleblower testimony, media reports. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 20, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-zuckerberg-says-facebooks-work-mischaracterized-in-reports-whistleblower-testimony-11633482725
