Facebook (Meta) whistleblower Frances Haugen has reportedly filed two new complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US stock market watchdog, arguing that the tech giant misled investors about its efforts to mitigate the spread of misinformation about climate change and Covid-19.
Filed by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit representing former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, the complaints allege that the company made “material misrepresentations and omissions in its statements to investors” regarding its efforts to combat corruption. disinformation, US media reported on Friday.
The complaints, which have not been previously disclosed, are based on Frances Haugen’s testimony before Congress and documents her lawyers submitted to the financial regulator last year, as well as thousands of internal documents that Frances Haugen took with her before leaving the company in May.
One of the two complaints alleges that misinformation about climate change was widely available on Facebook and that the company did not have a clear policy on the issue until last year, despite the social network’s executives complaining. committed to tackling this “global crisis” in meetings with shareholders.
A second complementary complaint claims that while Facebook executives publicly touted their efforts to remove harmful misinformation, internal documents “paint a whole different story”reports the Washington Post, which cites the documents of the complaint.
“Some investors simply won’t want to invest in a company that fails to deal adequately with this misinformation and engages in misleading statements and omissions on the subject”can we read in the complaint.
Last year, the White House pressured Facebook to do more to combat misinformation about vaccines. US President Joe Biden even told reporters “they (note: Facebook) kill people”.
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