The Washington Post has reported that, in a complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month, a pair of whistleblowers alleged that Facebook misled investors about its efforts to combat climate change and coronavirus (COVID-19) misinformation as per redacted copies of documents seen by the newspaper.
Filed by Whistleblower Aid, a non-profit representing former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, the paper said the complaints allege that the company made “material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors” about its efforts to combat misinformation.
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The complaints, which have not been previously reported, build on Haugen’s Congressional testimony and filings her lawyers submitted to the financial regulator last year, and they draw from thousands of internal documents that she took before leaving the company in May, it added.
One complaint alleged that climate change misinformation was prominently available on Facebook and that the company lacked a clear policy on the issue as recently as last year, despite Facebook executives’ committing to fight the “global crisis” during earnings calls.
A second, companion complaint argues that while Facebook executives were publicly touting their efforts to remove harmful COVID-19 misinformation, internal documents “paint a different story," the newspaper said.
The complaint cites internal company communications about the spread of vaccine hesitancy in comments and internal surveys that showed the proliferation of covid misinformation on the service, it added.
Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last year, after Haugen left the company and went public as a whistleblower. The company continues to remove false claims about vaccines and has worked to elevate “authoritative information” about climate change and public health, Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri has said, the Washington Post noted.
For years, Democrats have criticized social networks over what they argue is a negligent approach to misinformation about public health, democracy, and the environment. The White House last year pressured Facebook to do more to address vaccine misinformation, a push that culminated in President Biden telling reporters “they’re killing people.”
Despite public fireworks, policymakers and regulators in the interim have taken little action to rein in the proliferation of falsehoods online, in part because many proposals targeting misinformation risk running afoul of the First Amendment.
Haugen’s lawyers have sidestepped this concern by focusing their complaints on corporate interests: whether the company has lied to investors.
The newspaper said the SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of the complaints.
The Washington Post previously reported that coronavirus misinformation was dominating small sections of Facebook’s platform, creating “echo-chamber-like effects” and reinforcing vaccine hesitancy. Other researchers documented how posts by medical authorities, like the World Health Organization, were often swarmed by anti-vaccine commenters. These documents were also cited in the complaint.
Contact Ritika at ritika@proactiveinvestors.com