Facebook acknowledged to shareholders this week that it is facing “government investigations” related to the tens of thousands of pages of internal company documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen.
“Beginning in September 2021, we became subject to government investigations and requests relating to a former employee’s allegations and release of internal company documents concerning, among other things, our algorithms, advertising and user metrics, and content enforcement practices, as well as misinformation and other undesirable activity on our platform, and user well-being,” the company said in its quarterly earnings filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Zuckerberg: Documents ‘paint a false picture of our company’
The filing did not specify whether the government “investigations and requests” refer to known inquiries by the US Senate and UK Parliament, or to previously unconfirmed probes from federal agencies in the United States and from governments abroad.
Facebook declined to provide specifics on the disclosure. “We are always ready to answer regulators’ questions and will continue to cooperate with government inquiries,” a spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is said to have begun “looking into” the whistleblower’s disclosures, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. In particular, the agency is reportedly looking at whether Facebook might have violated its $5 billion settlement with the agency in 2019 over the company’s data privacy practices.
Juliana Gruenwald of the FTC’s Office of Public Affairs declined to comment, adding, “FTC investigations are nonpublic so we generally do not comment on whether we are investigating a particular matter.”
Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who left the company in May, provided the documents as evidence to support at least eight complaints to the SEC alleging that Facebook had misled investors and the public about issues that surfaced internally. She also provided redacted versions of the documents to Congress. The leaked documents also formed the basis of the Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files” series and, more recently, a host of reporting by a consortium of news organizations, collectively referred to as the “Facebook Papers.” CNN is a member of the consortium.
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it has launched an investigation based on Haugen’s complaint and disclosures from another, anonymous former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower that emerged Friday.
The documents provide the deepest look yet at many of Facebook’s biggest problems and how they’ve been discussed internally — unprecedented insight into the nearly $890 billion company, whose apps are now used by more than 3.6 billion people worldwide.
Facebook has aggressively pushed back on many of Haugen’s claims and much of the reporting around the documents, which the company says mischaracterizes its research and efforts. “Yes, we’re a business and we make profit, but the idea that we do so at the expense of people’s safety or wellbeing misunderstands where our own commercial interests lie,” a company spokesperson previously said in a statement.
Whistleblower: Facebook products ‘harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy’
Despite the disclosure — and the wave of critical news coverage of the company — it’s not clear Facebook shareholders are concerned. After Facebook reported Monday that its quarterly profit had grown to more than $9 billion, the company’s stock rose as much as 3% in after-hours trading.
Facebook shares are currently down nearly 11% since last month, but that may reflect investor concern about the impact of Apple’s privacy changes on the social media giant’s ad business.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
