Can We Make Social Media Safe for Democracy?

For many politicians, policymakers, and voters, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was a shocking lesson in the massive role tech companies, like Facebook and Twitter, play in our politics. 

Since then, their role has only gotten bigger. And as our guest on this episode of Trending Globally explains: that’s a huge problem for democracies around the world. 

Frances Haugen worked as a product manager in Facebook’s Civic Integrity Department from 2019-2021. While there she saw firsthand how Facebook’s algorithms are designed to maximize user engagement at all costs, with disastrous effects.

In 2021 Frances anonymously leaked tens of thousands of internal documents to The Wall Street Journal, and became known as the ‘Facebook Whistleblower.’ Since then she’s testified before Congress, and helped start a global movement to better understand and regulate ‘Big Tech.’

On this episode of Trending Globally, political economist and Rhodes Center Director Mark Blyth talks with Frances about the problems tech giants like Facebook pose to our politics, and what we can do to fix them. 

This episode was originally broadcast on the Rhodes Center Podcast, another show from the Watson Institute. If you enjoy this interview, be sure to subscribe to the Rhodes Center Podcast for more just like it. 

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Read the Wall Street Journal’s expose on Facebook.