Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is set to testify before a Senate hearing today. According to her written testimony, she will urge the government to regulate the social media company - which she claims is “tearing our societies apart”.

But who is Ms Haugen and how did her revelations come about? Lamiat Sabin reports

The company said these changes disrupted network traffic between the company’s data centres. However, it said it has no evidence yet that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime.

Vishwam Sankaran reports.

Data scientist Frances Haugen, 37, a former Facebook product manager with its civic misinformation team, is testifying before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to discuss the complaints she has made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding bad practice at the social networking giant.

Ms Haugen is expected to address her allegations concerning the company’s behaviour surrounding the 2020 US presidential election, its approach to hate speech and misinformation and the impact of its lifestyle app Instagram on the mental health of young women, among other issues.

Joe Sommerlad reports for The Independent.

The committee chairman, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is giving opening remarks describing Facebook as facing a “big tobacco moment”.

Watch live here:

Senator Blumenthal gives Ms Haugen his “heartfelt gratitude for your courage and strength … standing up to one of the most powerful, implacable corporate giants in the history of the world.”

He describes Facebook’s failure to act as making it “morally bankrupt”.

Mr Blumethal also says he wants to see Mark Zuckerberg testify.

Senator Blumenthal calls on the SEC and FTC to investigate Ms Haugen’s revelations and calls for “real penalties” for Facebook if investors or the public have been misled by the company.

Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the committee’s ranking Republican, continued a theme begun by Senator Blumenthal — that of the concerns of parents and the adverse effects of social media on teenagers and pre-teens on the platform.

She adds that as a mother and grandmother this is of particular concern.

Ms Haugen is now delivering her opening remarks and notes that while there are positives in the social media space, she says: “I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.”

Her written statement is available here.

Ms Haugen testifies: “Yesterday, we saw Facebook get taken off the Internet. I don’t know why it went down, but I know that for more than five hours Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilise democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies”