Facebook parent Meta closes team that monitors downsides to its products

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has disbanded a key piece of its efforts to address concerns about the potential downsides of its products.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the social media giant has closed down its Responsible Innovation team, which included roughly two dozen engineers, ethicists and others who worked between internal product teams and outside experts and users to identify and address concerns that arose from new products and alterations to its platforms.

A spokesperson for Meta said the company remains committed to the teams goals but that safe and ethical design resources were better spent on other related teams.

The move comes at a rocky time for the company, both financially and in the public eye.

Meta is caught in a general downturn in the tech industry as explosive growth during the pandemic leveled off as the virus waned. It has also seemed directionless at times since the departure of its long-time chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who helped grow Facebook into an online advertising giant since joining the company in 2008.

It has also been criticized for the role its ubiquitous social media services play in the spread of disinformation.

In July, senators called on Meta, Twitter and Telegram to address and moderate Russian disinformation campaigns on their platforms that target Spanish-speaking audiences.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted to podcaster Joe Rogan late last month that Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story – which turned out to be true – based on a warning from the FBI.

The Wall Street Journal reported last September that internal research at Instagram found its pursuit of engagement and focus on appearance was extremely harmful on its teenage girl users’ mental health.

The Responsible Innovation team was intended to help teams inside the company mind issues like privacy and human rights from a product’s inception.

“We design our products with a privacy-first approach and partner with experts in civil rights, accessibility, human rights, and safety, as well as academic institutions, governments, and people who use our products, like you,” wrote Margaret Stewart, the company vice president who oversaw the team, said in a June 2021 blog post.

An accomplishment touted by the team was involvement in the Facebook dating team’s decision to avoid including a filter for race – a move other dating apps soon emulated.