Is Facebook facing a “Big Tobacco moment”?

What’s happening Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, is facing a fresh wave of criticism in response to accusations from a former employee that the company knowingly made decisions that put profit over the public good. Last month, the Wall Street Journal published a series of stories based on leaked internal Facebook documents that show the company was aware that its products — which include Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to the main Facebook platform — cause significant harm, but didn’t act to fix the problem. The Journal’s reports include claims that Facebook knew Instagram was toxic to young girls’ self-esteem, allowed popular accounts to avoid its content rules, failed to stop illegal activity like drug trafficking, struggled to contain COVID misinformation and made changes to its algorithms that rewarded inflammatory content.

Those documents were leaked by Frances Haugen, a data scientist hired by Facebook to help combat election misinformation. Haugen testified before Congress on Tuesday, accusing the company of “buying its profits with our safety.” The company has said characterizations of its decision making in the Journal’s reporting and Haugen’s testimony are unfair. Facebook was dealt a different sort of blow on Monday, when a critical outage rendered its network and its affiliate apps unaccessible for hours. Why there’s debate

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Haugen’s testimony was a “Big Tobacco moment” for Facebook — a reference to past revelations that major cigarette companies knew their products were addictive and deadly. Facebook has weathered a number of scandals in recent years, but some industry experts agree with Blumenthal’s assessment that the company is facing a “moment of reckoning.” They argue that this latest crisis is different from previous ones because it suggests that Facebook’s leadership was actively complicit in the damage its products does, rather than simply being taken advantage of by bad actors. Some argue that the combined pressures of public outrage, employee discontent and potential hits to the company’s stock price may be enough to convince CEO Mark Zuckerberg to change Facebook’s underlying structures that boost controversial content. Recent critical statements by lawmakers from both parties also suggest that Congress may have the momentum to pass legislation that forces Big Tech firms to adjust their business models.