Frances Haugen facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Frances Haugen

Born	1983/1984 (age 40–41) Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.
Education	Olin College (BS) Harvard University (MBA)
Occupation	Data scientist and engineer, product manager

Frances Haugen (born in 1983 or 1984) is an American expert in technology. She has worked as a product manager, data engineer, and scientist. She is also known as a whistleblower, which means she shared important information about a company with the public.

In 2021, Frances Haugen shared thousands of secret documents from Facebook with the government and a newspaper called The Wall Street Journal. These documents showed how Facebook worked behind the scenes.

She has also spoken to important groups like the U.S. Senate, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the European Parliament. In 2023, she wrote a book about her experiences called The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook.

Early life and education
Career journey
- Working at Facebook
The Facebook Files investigation
Complaints to the SEC
Testimony to the U.S. Congress
Actions by state attorneys general
Other important actions
- Her book: The Power of One
Personal life
See also

Early life and education

Frances Haugen grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. She went to Horn Elementary and Northwest Junior High School. She finished high school at Iowa City West High School in 2002. Her father was a doctor, and her mother became a priest after working as a professor.

Frances studied electrical and computer engineering at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. She was part of the first group of students to graduate from there in 2006. Later, she earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School in 2011.

Career journey

After college in 2006, Frances Haugen started working at Google. She helped with things like Google Ads and Google Book Search. She also worked on Google+, which was a social media site. While at Google, she helped create a way to change how search results are ranked. Google even paid for her to get her MBA degree. She also helped start a dating app called Secret Agent Cupid, which later became Hinge.

In 2015, she joined Yelp as a data product manager. She worked on improving how Yelp's search worked using image recognition. After a year, she moved to Pinterest.

Working at Facebook

Frances Haugen joined Facebook in 2019. She decided to join because someone close to her started believing extreme ideas online. She wanted to help make Facebook a better and safer place. When Facebook hired her, she said she wanted to work on problems like misinformation. So, in 2019, she became a product manager on Facebook's "civic integrity" team. This team worked to keep elections and public discussions safe from harmful content.

After the 2020 United States elections, Facebook closed its civic integrity team. Frances felt very disappointed. While still working at Facebook, she decided to become a whistleblower. She felt that Facebook often cared more about making money than about keeping people safe. She left Facebook in May 2021.

In the spring of 2021, she asked John Tye, a lawyer who helps whistleblowers, for help. He agreed to represent her and keep her identity a secret. In the late summer of 2021, Frances started meeting with members of the United States Congress, like Senator Richard Blumenthal.

The Facebook Files investigation

Starting in September 2021, The Wall Street Journal newspaper published a series of articles called The Facebook Files: A Wall Street Journal Investigation. These articles were based on secret Facebook documents that Frances Haugen had gathered. The documents included research reports and employee discussions.

The investigation had nine parts. It looked at how Facebook treated important users differently, how it affected young people, and how changes to its system in 2018 caused problems. It also showed how Facebook struggled to stop serious problems like illegal activities and false information about vaccines. After these reports, an article was published about Frances Haugen, revealing that she was the person who shared the documents.

After The Wall Street Journal articles came out, a U.S. Senate committee held two hearings. First, Facebook's head of safety, Antigone Davis, was questioned. Then, on October 5, 2021, Frances Haugen, who had been anonymous, spoke to the committee.

On October 3, 2021, Frances Haugen revealed her identity as the Facebook whistleblower on a TV show called 60 Minutes. She talked about Facebook's "Civic Integrity" program. This program was meant to stop false information and threats to elections. She said that Facebook closed this program after the 2020 elections. She believed this contributed to the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Frances said, "The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money."

Frances shared documents with members of the U.S. Congress and government lawyers. Facebook's value dropped by $6 billion after her 60 Minutes interview and a Facebook outage on October 4, 2021.

Complaints to the SEC

Frances Haugen's lawyers filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC is a government agency that protects investors. These complaints covered topics that The Wall Street Journal had reported on. They included how Facebook handled political misinformation, harmful messages, mental health issues for teenagers, and how it treated some users better than others.

In her complaint to the SEC, Frances said that Facebook had misled its investors. She claimed they had lied about how much progress they made in stopping harmful content on their platform. The documents she gave to the SEC also showed how Facebook managed false information related to the U.S. election after November 2020.

Frances's complaint also included Facebook documents about how the company handled misinformation and harmful messages in India. The complaint said that many users and pages linked to a group called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) spread fear and anti-Muslim ideas to cause violence. She claimed that Facebook knew about these harmful messages in India. Frances also said that Facebook did not have enough tools to find and fix problems in Hindi and Bengali languages.

Public statements by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were mentioned in the SEC complaints. Frances claimed that Zuckerberg was ultimately responsible because he controlled Facebook. She said that some of his public statements, like his testimony to Congress in 2020, did not match Facebook's internal documents. In February 2022, more complaints were filed on behalf of Frances. They claimed Facebook had misled investors about its efforts to stop false information about climate change misinformation and COVID misinformation.

Testimony to the U.S. Congress

On October 5, 2021, Frances Haugen spoke to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee's Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. She had shared a written version of her opening statement the day before.

During the hearing, Frances said, "The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed. They won’t solve this crisis without your help." She also talked about countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia. She said Facebook was "literally fanning ethnic violence" when its systems promoted content that caused problems. Frances also mentioned she was talking to another U.S. congressional committee about issues like spying and false information.

After the hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal said Frances "wants to fix Facebook, not burn it to the ground." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by saying, "Many of the claims don't make any sense. I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted." He also said, "We're committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the right body to assess trade-offs between social equities is our democratically elected Congress."

Actions by state attorneys general

Documents shared by Frances Haugen were given to government lawyers in states like California, Massachusetts, and Vermont. On October 13, 2021, more than a dozen U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Facebook. They asked for information about Facebook's "XCheck system," which protected high-profile users. They also asked about Facebook's actions against false information about COVID-19 vaccines.

On November 12, 2021, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms (which used to be Facebook). The lawsuit claimed that Facebook executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, had repeatedly lied about how safe the platform was. This lawsuit was based on the documents Frances Haugen leaked. The lawsuit asked for over $100 billion in damages and for the company to make changes.

On November 18, 2021, a group of state attorneys general announced an investigation into Meta. This investigation was also based on documents Frances Haugen shared. It focused on Instagram and how Meta encourages people to use its apps. It also looked at possible harms to children and teenagers.

Other important actions

On October 6, 2021, Frances Haugen's lawyer said they were talking with the Federal Trade Commission, the European Parliament, and the French Parliament. Other U.S. congressional committees also planned to meet with Frances.

On October 11, 2021, Facebook's Oversight Board said it would talk with Frances about her experiences. On October 21, 2021, Frances met with members of the U.S. House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.

On October 25, 2021, Frances Haugen spoke to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She asked the government to make rules for Facebook and for Facebook to make changes.

On November 8, 2021, she spoke to the European Parliament. She urged them to make social media companies more open and to not create loopholes that big tech companies could use. Frances said that the Digital Services Act (DSA) could be a "global gold standard" for protecting democracy on social media. She stressed that Europe's many languages could make platforms improve safety for everyone.

In May 2022, after the European Parliament agreed on the Digital Services Act, Frances spoke to the Parliament again. She praised their work and asked them to make sure the DSA was strongly enforced.

In June 2022, it was reported that Frances Haugen planned to start a non-profit organization called "Beyond the Screen." This group aims to raise awareness about the harms of social media. It will focus on legal and financial ways to reduce these harms.

In October 2022, Frances joined the Council for Responsible Social Media project. This project works to address the negative effects of social media on mental health and public life in the United States.

Her book: The Power of One

In December 2021, a publisher announced that Frances Haugen would write a book about her experiences. In 2023, her book The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook was published. A review in The Washington Post said the book was important for understanding how social media's dangers grew.

Personal life

In 2011, Frances Haugen was diagnosed with celiac disease. In 2014, she had to go to the hospital during a difficult time in her life. In 2021, Frances told The Guardian that she wanted to work on misinformation at Facebook because of a friend. This friend started believing strange and harmful ideas after visiting certain online groups.

After leaving Facebook, Frances moved to Puerto Rico. She has also invested in a cryptocurrency company. Frances has family from Norway. In 2022, she received an America-Norway Heritage Award for her work as a whistleblower.