Before Frances Haugen came out with the Facebook documents, before people began to realize what was happening and, you know, firms like SMVLC began pursuing lawsuits to try and hold these companies accountable and to shine a light on what they were doing, I want to say no—they weren’t.
Now, in fairness, they had integrity teams, they had safety teams, the major companies. The way they structured it was: when you proposed a safety fix, you had to also establish that it would not negatively impact engagement.
So there are people within these companies who were trying to make things better. They were completely hamstrung in their ability to do so. They could not get anything past leadership. Folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel—they could not get anything past leadership if they could not establish that it wouldn’t harm engagement.
They purported to be trying, and I think the individuals on those teams absolutely cared and meant well, but were not able to really make any difference because of management.
After Frances Haugen came forward, and after litigation was filed, and now that we’re trying to get regulation, I’m sure we’ve all seen these companies come out with these “we now have this safety” and “we now have that” and “we now have this.”
I have yet to see one of those announcements that, when you read the fine print and read between the lines, shows they’ve made any real material change. They’re doing the bare minimum in an effort to convince us that they’re doing something.
