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Whistleblower Haugen: "Fear of bringing even more microphones and sensors from Facebook into our homes and offices"
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is concerned about Mark Zuckerberg's plans to align his company with the virtual world, with the operation of a so-called metaverse. "Personally, the thought scares me of bringing even more microphones and sensors from Facebook into our houses and offices and letting them spy on us while we have no idea how they use the data," Haugen told the dpa news agency on Wednesday.
Facebook has repeatedly shown that the company cannot be trusted and that its public statements do not match developments in the group.
Haugen specifically emphasized that Facebook wanted to offer devices such as VR glasses that can represent virtual reality at cost price.
"They want to make it impossible for others to compete with them on the same terms," says Haugen.
Facebook's founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the renaming of his company to Meta.
With the new name he wants to emphasize, among other things, that he considers the metaverse to be the future of digital communication.
(Read more about what Zuckerberg plans to do with the Metaverse here.)
Frances Haugen used to work for Facebook, but is now a vocal critic of the company.
She has downloaded a large collection of internal Facebook documents and made them available to the US Congress, authorities and selected media.
According to Haugen, the information shows that the group puts profits above the well-being of its users.
Internal references to developments harmful to users have been ignored.
Facebook rejects Haugen's allegations.
The whistleblower welcomes Facebook's latest decision to crush its facial recognition function.
"I think that shows how important it is that we take a tough position on Facebook's actions," said Haugen.
"Because if we band together and demand sensible things, we can make progress."
hpp / dpa
