West DSM News

An Iowa native, known nationally as the "Facebook whistleblower," testified in front of Congress after having filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission against the company.

Francis Haugen, 37, who originally had kept her identity a secret until a "60 Minutes" segment aired, shared internal documentation from Facebook with The Wall Street Journal and said that she will testify as to how Facebook deceives regulators and the public in regards to its monitoring of misinformation and hate speech, Radio Iowa reported.

"'Facebook own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divisive, that is polarizing, it’s easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions,' Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a data scientist from Iowa with a computer engineering degree and a Harvard MBA," Sarvajeet D. Chandra wrote in a tweet.

Haugen first began working for Facebook in 2019 following positions with both Pinterest, Yelp and Google. Haugen said she even asked Facebook to work in the position are of fighting misinformation after losing a friend to online conspiracies but was denied that placement, KHAK reported.

Haugen explained in her interview with "60 Minuites" this issue at Facebook arises with the algorithms which determine what shows up on users' news feeds and how much that user favors hateful content, and a change in 2018 actually lent to more hostility and disagreements online but also created reoccurring traffic. 

Haugen has filed a total of eight complaints with the U.S. securities regulators which allege Facebook withholds information to users' about the dangers of social media, KHAK reported. Facebook has not announced any plans to take action against Haugen.

A Facebook spokesperson told CNN that social medial platforms reflect the good, bad and ugly of humanity, but Facebook is trying to amplify the good while mitigating the bad, according to Radio Iowa.