Katie Harbath joined Facebook more than a decade ago as the first Republican employee in the company’s Washington, D.C., office, pushing skeptical members of Congress on the virtues of the young social network for healthy elections.
Now she is pitching a different message. After rising to become Facebook’s public-policy director for global elections, Ms. Harbath left the company last year and teamed with a group now advising lawmakers in Washington and Europe on legislation advocating more guardrails around social media.
In her role at Facebook, now Meta Platforms Inc., Ms. Harbath had been the face of the company on many political issues and a liaison with governments and parties around the world. She says that when she resigned in March, she had come to believe that unless there is urgent intervention from governments and tech platforms, social media will likely incubate future political violence like that of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I still believe social media has done more good than harm in politics, but it’s close,” she says. “Maybe it’s 52-48—and trending south.”
In this photo illustration, the Facebook logo is displayed on the screen of an iPhone Oct. 06, 2021 in Paris, France. (Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Ms. Harbath, 41 years old, is the highest-ranking former Facebook executive now working with the Integrity Institute, a startup nonprofit founded by former employees who had worked on identifying and mitigating potential societal harms caused by the company’s products. The institute is now advising lawmakers and think tanks around the world on these issues.
Ms. Harbath, now also a fellow at several Washington think tanks focused on election issues, joins a growing number of former Facebook executives who have gone public with their criticisms of the company. She says she no longer thinks her former company, including Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, has the will to address its core problems in the way she believes is necessary.
“I’m disappointed in leadership, and I hate the fact that I’m disappointed in leadership,” she said of the company.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said Ms. Harbath “helped represent the company around the globe. We thank her and wish her the best.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Ms. Harbath says that Meta is so consumed with daily crises that it neglects more proactive planning, and that her efforts to build a plan for 2024 electoral threats were dismissed. Among other things, she says, if tech platforms including Facebook don’t draw better lines between news and paid political propaganda, operatives will systematically erode the distinction.
Regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, for example, Facebook and other social-media platforms were used extensively by those contesting the election results and organizing the rallies that culminated in violence. She said the company should be doing more to scrutinize both whether it could have done more to head off violence of the sort that erupted on Jan. 6 and what role its platforms have played in making politics more vitriolic.
“While they’re right that they don’t deserve sole blame, there should be more soul-searching,” she says.
Mr. Stone said Meta invested heavily in its 2020 election preparations and continues to work on the issues that she described as causes of concern.
Facebook’s policy team, led by Ms. Harbath’s former boss Joel Kaplan, often didn’t accept changes pushed by internal researchers and staffers on the company’s integrity team charged with assessing potential harm to users.
Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that integrity staffers felt the policy team often placed business and political concerns above the risks to users. Facebook has said it invested billions of dollars and hired tens of thousands of employees dedicated to preventing such harms.
A protester holds an anti-vaccination sign as supporters of President Donald Trump rally to reopen California as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen, on May 16, 2020 in Woodland Hills, Calif. (David McNew/Getty Images)
“Inside of Facebook, Katie was the face of the people who told us ‘no,’ ” said Sahar Massachi, one of the Integrity Institute’s founders. Ms. Harbath had been “the honorable opposition,” he said; he credits her with bringing political savvy and connections to the new organization.
Ms. Harbath praises Meta’s work on voter registration and political-ad transparency as groundbreaking, and says as a consultant she hopes to help outside groups find other ways to make social media a healthier part of politics.
“People know where to put a whistleblower and they know where to put a loyal company spokesperson,” says Nu Wexler, who worked on the policy communications team with Ms. Harbath and is now a partner in a Washington, D.C., communications firm. “I don’t know they know where to put someone like Katie.”
Ms. Harbath grew up in a conservative Wisconsin family in a paper-mill town, and attended the University of Wisconsin with plans to be a journalist.
After graduation, she landed a job at the Republican National Committee, where her limited experience blogging earned the 23-year-old a role overseeing its digital-campaign efforts.
Several years later, she joined Facebook, where she eventually oversaw a staff of as many as 60 employees that trained political parties in how to best use the platform and helped design the company’s election policy. She says there was a working assumption throughout the company that more Facebook usage would make governments more transparent and expand people’s ability to engage in public discourse.
Ms. Harbath says her doubts about the premise originated in 2016, when elections in the Philippines and the U.S. and the Brexit campaign in the U.K. were awash in misinformation spread on Facebook.
After that, Ms. Harbath says, her role shifted from primarily trying to promote Facebook as a positive force to more often trying to prevent foreign governments, criminals, troll farms and other bad actors from abusing it.
As public criticism of Facebook mounted, she says, executives put a heavy focus on what internally was called defensibility—forming policies based in part on whether the company would face external attacks or criticism. She says her job became consumed by “escalations”—an internal term for potential public-relations crises and high-profile complaints.
“Eighty percent of my time was spent doing escalations,” she says.
A restructuring in her department stripped her of much of her authority over election policy heading into 2020, she said, and the company rejected her proposal to refocus her work on heading off electoral threats before 2024, when a number of major global elections are scheduled. On Jan. 6, she watched the riot at the Capitol unfold on television.
“That was a key day in terms of deciding to leave,” she said. “If I wasn’t going to be able to have impact internally, I needed to go somewhere where I could actually do something.”
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
