Frances Haugen: My original intention was to write a book about agency. People have a lot of reasons why they don’t follow their hearts. They’re like, “If I do what I think is right, I might lose my job, I might be impoverished, I might lose my home and live in a box on the street.” I never got to the point of being homeless, but in my late twenties, I went through a laundry list of horrors and learned I could stand back up. That gave me the freedom to follow my heart when it came to blowing the whistle on Facebook. But in the process of writing the whole thing, I realized that the book that the world needs right now is a conversation about social media. There are 100,000 more words about agency that are not in that book. But we need to do things like pass transparency laws. 

I’m not sure that those 100,000 more words are needed. You talked a lot about your personal story, so the book is sort of a roman à clef leading to your decision to become a whistleblower, implicitly urging others to do the same. What made you so adamant on calling people to action?

We are starting from such a low point. Our laws were written about technology from the ’80s and ’90s, in a world where today’s technology was unimaginable. My hope is for people to understand why we have to act. If we really want to do culture change, we need a different power balance with these companies. We have to change the expectations about what we’re entitled to in terms of information.

During the recent US congressional hearing on AI, senator after senator said that we screwed up with social media, so let’s get this right. But social media still goes on, and Congress hasn’t passed even basic laws to address its ills. 

People are still trapped on social media. As people begin to take one step back from the AI hype ledge, they’re going to begin seeing we actually have very pressing problems today. And those begin with actually addressing social media.

Can you point to progress?

We are starting to see an inflection point with regard to social media and children in the United States. Look at the US surgeon general’s advisory about social media last month. If you had asked me in 2021 whether we would have a cigarette moment with social media in the next two years, I would have said, “There’s no way that’s happening.” And yet the surgeon general came out and said social media can be harmful to children.

Do you think that that warning is going to make a significant difference? It only asks for voluntary changes.

Since the 1960s, there have been very few such advisories, and those were things that resulted in protections we take for granted today. Historically, within two to three years of most of those advisories happening, some kind of large-scale action takes place.