After Frances Haugen's whistleblower disclosures, Facebook is intensifying its fight against leakers. According to The New York Times Facebook has restricted access to certain internal groups that deal sensitively with issues such as safety and elections. It is both amusing and a sign of the larger issues that the company currently faces, that the change was made to prevent more leaks immediately leaked.
Haugen has been a whistleblower ever since she revealed her identity to Congress and to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Employees have had access to the documents that she gave to Congress and to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Slides detailing Haugen's research on teen mental health were included, along with numerous memos about the company's handling of misinformation, rules for VIPs and other tricky issues.
The Times notes that these documents are readily available because Facebook has had an open culture for sharing since its inception. Employees often use Workplace to discuss difficult issues within the company.
However, the social network is now moving away from this openness. According to the report, the company will make some internal groups secret and will terminate employees whose work is not related to safety or security. The company informed employees that sensitive integrity discussions will take place in closed, curated forums in future.
One hand, it would appear that the news of the change was immediately leaked. This would support the claim that the company is more leaky than in years past. It could also indicate increased unrest among employees. Some are concerned that separating teams working on important issues could lead to more harm than good.
