If you remember Frances Haugen, then you probably also remembered Facebook's privacy issues in late 2021. Back then, she stood up against her former employer for its alleged amplified misinformation, the hidden harms of Facebook products, and the company's disregard for platform safeguards to focus on growth, per the NPR.
Haugen recently resurfaces with new worries due to Facebook, now known as Meta's push towards capitalizing on the Metaverse.
A report from Coin Telegraph mentioned that the Facebook whistleblower took aim at Meta in a new interview with Politico, where she suggested that Meta's version of the Metaverse would repeat the same mistakes she called it out for.
Meta is currently working on monetizing the Metaverse, according to a CNET report.
Haugen's Concerns on the Metaverse
Haugen said during her interview with Politico that she is concerned that Meta could disregard users' safety in favor of collecting information from them while pulling from her experience in the company.
"I'm super concerned about how many sensors are involved," Haugen said. "When we do the Metaverse, we have to put lots more microphones from Facebook; lots more other kinds of sensors into our homes."
As such, she added that users won't have a choice on whether or not they want Facebook (or Meta) spying on them at home, saying that they "have to trust the company to do the right thing."
The Facebook whistleblower also gave a reminder that despite Meta's "very grandiose promises" about how there's safety by design in the Metaverse, the company has to be committed to transparency, access, and other accountability measures to avoid repeating the same mistakes she called them out for.
People's Distrust of Meta
Haugen isn't alone in thinking that Meta isn't trustworthy enough to handle people's privacy and sensitive information.
NFT and metaverse infrastructure provider Advokate Group found that 87% of its 1000 American respondents preferred a decentralized metaverse on a blockchain rather than be part of a mega project by tech giants, per TechynoWorld.
The distrust became more evident when 77% of the respondents shared their concerns over Meta's entry into the metaverse since it owns users' metaverse data or private user data.
People's distrust of Meta didn't happen in 2021. A 2012 study from Abine found that 70% of Facebook users do not trust Meta with their personal information, per ZDNet.
Additionally, encrypted email service ProtonMail CEO Andy Yen is also concerned about Meta's privacy policy. He said in an interview with Newsweek in 2021 that he doesn't believe we should trust Meta with our privacy and sensitive data given its track record of upholding privacy.
"What they're doing with the metaverse is... building a new infrastructure where they control everything," Yen said. "They control the device, they have the VR headsets (Oculus Quest 2), you're now in their world, on their devices, on their platform."
Yen explained that Meta doesn't control its destiny and is relying on other platforms to reach its customers, whether it's Apple's iPhone, Google Chrome, and Google Search. As such, he believes we shouldn't trust Meta with our privacy and sensitive data.
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