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Whistleblower: Facebook 'lied' to oversight board

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"Facebook claimed this was just about a second check, making sure the rules were applied correctly. And because Facebook was unwilling to invest enough people to do that second check, they just let people through," Haughen said.

Referring to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, Haughen said that Facebook did not disclose the existence of its "crosscheck" program to an independent oversight board reviewing how the site made decisions about what content to permit on the platform.

"We should be able to know that systems like this exist, because no one knew how bad the system was, because Facebook lied to their own oversight board about it," Haughen said.

Haugen, a product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team, appeared before a parliamentary select committee in Britain that is examining plans to regulate social media companies.