Ms Frances Haugen:

There is a major national security problem with Facebook with regard to lack of transparency. How does transparency relate to national security? Usually when one thinks of national security, one thinks of secrets. In the case of Facebook, it is important to compare what information it shares with researchers versus what information other comparable platforms like Twitter share. I worked within the threat intelligence part of Facebook, with the people who are the first line of defence for finding information and influence operations. This is a very commonly used technique by Russia for influencing how politics works in neighbouring countries and in other places around the world. It is also used by China, Iran and many major adversaries who have decided to weaponise one of the most powerful things about western countries, which is their openness. When I worked within the threat intelligence team, I saw a gross level of understaffing. Facebook kept itself behind a curtain. Twitter has said it will make 10% of all public tweets available to anyone in the world to research. It is called the Firehose. I was shocked to find out that many influence operations on Facebook were caught via Twitter because Twitter made data available but Facebook refused to do so. People would analyse tweets and find networks. They would find sets of accounts that acted in co-ordinated ways to spread messages that destabilised places like Ukraine. People would then take those networks' IP addresses, give them to Facebook and point out that the accounts have the same names on Facebook and that the IP addresses are operating from the same places on Facebook. It is unacceptable that we have to rely on Twitter's good actions to keep us safe with Facebook. That is why any online safety realm must include safe harbour for researchers. Facebook is suing researchers who try to keep Facebook safe. It also needs to include mandatory, enforced transparency, like the Digital Services Act does. Unless we have enforced transparency, we will not adequately find those influence operations that Russia uses to destabilise free societies.