Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist for Facebook, will give public evidence to a Parliament for the first time about her experiences at the company. Zhang emerged as a Facebook whistleblower last year after highlighting failures at the company to tackle the spread of misinformation, especially in developing countries.
She will give evidence to MPs and Peers on the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill. This is the first time she has given public evidence to a Parliament. The Committee is gathering evidence and ideas to improve the Bill, including its provisions to regulate social media, before it goes before the UK Parliament in 2022. She will speak to the Committee via video link on Monday 18 October from 4.45 pm.
Damian Collins MP, Chair of the Committee said: “The Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill will question Sophie Zhang about her work as a data scientist for the Facebook Site Integrity fake engagement team, dealing with bot accounts, often operated by government backed agencies in countries such as Russia. These networks have sought to spread disinformation and interfere in the politics of other countries. Combating inauthentic accounts spreading disinformation is an important challenge in making social media safer and we want to understand what the companies are doing now, and what more should be done.”
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