Testimony

Oral Evidence to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill

Oct 2021 🇬🇧 Al Jazeera (reporting on UK Parliament Joint Committee oral evidence)

Three weeks after her U.S. Senate appearance, Haugen gave oral evidence to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee scrutinizing the Draft Online Safety Bill. She told British lawmakers that Facebook's engagement-based ranking amplifies divisive and polarizing content, arguing the design choice is linked to real-world unrest in multiple countries, and that the company had been unwilling to accept even small reductions in profit for the sake of safety. Her appearance was framed by UK media as directly feeding the committee's push to toughen the bill's provisions on algorithmic transparency and duty-of-care obligations toward younger users. TechKids Foundation cites this as a documented example of Haugen's advocacy translating U.S. congressional disclosures into a second country's legislative process, rather than as an independent finding of harm.

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CITATION

Haugen, Frances. Oral evidence session before the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, UK Parliament, October 25, 2021, as reported in: 'Facebook will fuel more unrest, whistle-blower tells UK lawmakers.' Al Jazeera, October 25, 2021.

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