Vox Sentences - The Facebook whistleblower has receipts

An ex-Facebook employee delivers damning testimony before Congress; French clergy abused more than 200,000 children over the past century. 

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

Whistleblower: Facebook knows it causes harm

Matt McClain/Pool/Getty Images

• A former Facebook employee testified before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that Facebook knows its algorithms spread misinformation, stoke conflict, and harm young people, but its commitment to growth means it won’t change without bold intervention from Congress. [Washington Post / Cat Zakrzewski, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Cristiano Lima, and Will Oremus]
• That whistleblower, Frances Haugen, said she enjoyed working with the company until it nixed its civil integrity board after the 2020 presidential election. That decision, she says, allowed misinformation to spread more widely on Facebook and left it more open for dangerous misuse — including planning for the January 6 Capitol riot. [CNN / Rishi Iyengar]
• Though Facebook has been struggling with public crises for years, Haugen’s story is particularly damning because it involves a former high-ranking official describing in striking detail how Facebook ignored its role in harming people and institutions. [Vox/ Shirin Ghaffary]
• Both Democrats and Republicans welcomed Haugen’s testimony, focusing their questions on how Facebook algorithms promote content that prompts anger and other strong reactions. [New York Times / Cecilia Kang]
• Haugen shared ideas for cleaning up Facebook: more transparency, adequate oversight by an effective body, and finding ways to reduce the spread of misinformation — all of which she says Facebook won’t do without intervention from Congress. [Axios / Margaret Harding McGill]

French clergy abused more than 200,000 children

• A major report commissioned by Catholic bishops in France found that clergy sexually abused more than 200,000 children over 70 years. [Reuters / Tangi Salaün and Ingrid Melander]
• According to the 2,500-page report, most of the abused were boys between 10 and 13 years old and the Catholic Church did little to help them: “There was a whole bunch of negligence, of deficiency, of silence, an institutional cover-up,” the leader of the investigation, Jean-Marc Sauvé, told reporters on Tuesday. [BBC / Hugh Schofield]
• The Vatican said Pope Francis was informed of the report’s findings and offered his condolences in a statement: “His thoughts turn first to the victims, with immense sorrow for their injuries and gratitude for their courage to speak out.” [Washington Post / Rick Noack and Chico Harlan]
• The investigation committee issued dozens of recommendations, including new training for priests, compensation for victims, and even changing the rules the Vatican uses to govern. [CNN / Saskya Vandoorne, Simon Bouvier and Sam Bradpiece]

A Democratic challenger to far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Green is raising funds quickly. [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution / Patricia Murphy, Greg Bluestein, and Tia Mitchell]

• Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte says he's stepping down next year. Now the son of the country's former dictator wants to succeed Duterte. [NYT / Jason Gutierrez]
• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned the US is getting very close to the debt ceiling limit, ahead of a vote scheduled for Wednesday. Republicans have refused to offer help. Now Democrats are considering a workaround of the Senate filibuster. [NBC / Rebecca Shabad and Teaganne Finn]
• Twitter hosted millions of new visitors during a massive Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outage on Monday. [Washington Post / Annabelle Timsit and Sofia Diogo Mateus]

“The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.” 

[Frances Haugen telling Congress that Facebook won’t quit practices it knows are harmful]

School’s been back for a month. Today, Explained spent a month checking in with Cramer Hill Elementary to find out how it’s going. [Spotify]

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