WSJ: Facebook pauses work on new products after whistleblower criticizes

Facebook has postponed work on some undisclosed new products after a whistleblower revealed an internal investigation into Instagram’s harmfulness. Sources told The Wall Street Journal.

According to WSJ, Facebook would now be doing “reputation reviews” before moving on to work on “some new and existing products.” With this, the company wants to further investigate to what extent the products will further damage Facebook’s reputation, and whether they will not have a negative impact on children. It is not mentioned exactly which products are involved.

The Wall Street Journal ran a series of articles last month revealing some of the company’s internal investigations. According to WSJ, this would have shown, among other things, that Facebook does little about illegal content on the site and that Instagram is harmful to teenagers. Facebook did not agree with the allegations, but the platform had to answer to the US Congress.

As a result, Facebook made some of the internal presentations made based on the investigation public. Later, the Facebook whistleblower who allegedly passed on the Instagram investigation to WSJ made himself known.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg previously wrote that the criticism has made him think about how young people use the service. According to him, tech companies should therefore work on services that protect that group. Facebook itself was working on a kid-friendly version of Instagram, but work on it has also been paused after the whistleblower’s accusations.