Facebook denies whistleblower's claims it contributed to Capitol riot: Report

Facebook logo. Pic/AFP

Facebook executive Nick Clegg, in a defiant internal memo, said that a former employee will accuse the company of contributing to the US Capitol riot, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Facebook appears to be launching a pre-emptive strike against the whistleblower with the memo, also shared with Axios, ahead of her CBS "60 Minutes" interview airing on Sunday and her scheduled appearance at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

In the memo, Facebook's Vice President of Global Affairs Clegg wrote that she will accuse the tech giant on "60 Minutes" of contributing to polarisation in the US, citing NYT, Axios reported.

Clegg stated that the programme will "suggest that the extraordinary steps we took for the 2020 elections were relaxed too soon and contributed to the horrific events of January 6 in the Capitol".

According to CBS, the whistleblower will reveal her identity on "60 Minutes" and outline allegations based on thousands of pages of internal research she provided the Securities and Exchange Commission.

She claims she can "prove Facebook is lying to the public and investors about the effectiveness of its campaigns to eradicate hate, violence and misinformation from its platforms," as per CBS.

Facebook has been fielding criticism over its internal research into Instagram's negative impact on teenage girls after the whistleblower leaked a trove of documents to the Wall Street Journal.

"What evidence there is simply does not support the idea that Facebook, or social media more generally, is the primary cause of polarisation," Clegg stated in the memo, sent on Friday.

"(P)olarising content and misinformation are also present on platforms that have no algorithmic ranking whatsoever, including private messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp," he added.

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