Will Facebook's Whistleblower Leaks Lead to More Regulation?

<div>You may think that it’s been an unsteady week for Facebook, with all its platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram <a href="https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-outage-what-caused-the-problem">going dark for six hours on 4 October</a>, affecting billions around the globe. But, this wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Facebook this week.<br> <br> </div> <div>Based on a trove of over 10,000 documents provided by a whistleblower, <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> over the past few weeks revealed that Facebook fully understands how its products influence and harm society.<br> <br> </div> <div>And just a day after the outage, the crisis deepened after the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, came forward and testified before the US Congress and gave lawmakers a candid view on how the company functions and its efforts to keep people hooked on the platform despite knowing its ill effects.<br> <br> For example, in an internal study by Facebook, the company knew the negative impact Instagram has on teenage girls, how certain algorithms designed to make the platform a healthier place were actually having the opposite effect and the fact that Facebook senior management, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, knew all of this.<br> <br> </div> <div>In this episode, we break down what exactly was revealed by the whistleblower, its impact and also answering the bigger question-whats next for Facebook? Are more stringent regulations in its future? and what would they be?<br> <br> </div> <div> <strong>Host and Producer: </strong>Himmat Shaligram</div> <div> <strong>Guest: </strong>Apar Gupta, Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation.</div> <div><br> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <strong>Editor:</strong> Shelly Walia</div> <div><br> </div> <div> <strong>Music:</strong> Big Bang Fuzz</div> <div><br> </div> <div><strong>Listen to The Big Story podcast on:</strong></div> <div><br> </div> <div>Apple: <a href="https://www.youtub