Frances Haugen ’06 tells Olin, “How we treat each other matters”

May 2, 2022

Frances Haugen, a 2006 Electrical and Computer Engineering alum from Olin’s first graduating class, returned to campus on Thursday, April 28 to speak with Olin students, faculty and staff, and guests from Wellesley and Babson in the Norden Auditorium.

Haugen shared her personal and professional path working on ranking algorithms at Google, Pinterest, Yelp and Facebook, and ultimately why she made the courageous decision to blow the whistle on Facebook in 2021.

“The practice of how we treat each other matters,” emphasized Haugen. “Not valuing the practice of management led to really inhumane outcomes” for those affected by the negative aspects of social media. We need to ask: “How could we design to demonstrate we value autonomy and dignity?”

“I encourage you to work at Facebook,” she told the audience. “It’s the most important job you can have right now.” Many good people work there. “But they are working within a system of incentives that makes it hard to make good decisions.”

“How did we get here?” Not enough people were sitting at the table, said Haugen. All communication technologies throughout history have been disruptive. Each time, we’ve had to “recognize the consequences, think really hard and figure out new ways forward. But we did it.”

Acknowledging that thinking about these issues can feel overwhelming for this generation, Haugen said, “this is our burden; this is our time to shine; this is our time to make the change.” It will take time and effort, but “I believe in you. I believe in all of us together, and we can do this.”

President Gilda Barabino welcomed Haugen and described the feelings of excitement and pride on campus following the revelation. “At the root of everyone’s reaction was that we were not surprised that the person who came forward to blow the whistle was an Oliner,” said Barabino. “We see in Frances the qualities we see in ourselves—a deep commitment to helping others and fighting for equity and making the world a better place through engineering.”

Professor of Engineering Deb Chachra shared her memories of Haugen as an Olin student. “I remember that her relentless drive and relentless enthusiasm were pretty much inextricable from each other,” said Chachra. “Especially at a place like Olin, we ask students to bring all of who they are to their work… We know that everything we do and how we do it shapes who we are and how we interact with the world.” Chachra continued, “I know I speak for her former professors and many of us here in the Olin community that we couldn’t be prouder to see where Frances has taken that approach.”

Watch the replay...

Haugen spoke at Olin thanks to the request of Library Director Callan Bignoli, who connected with Haugen at SXSW earlier this spring. Earlier in the day, Frances was finally able to connect in person with Olin students participating in the Movement-Building co-curricular Haugen leads with Bignoli and Assistant Professor of Social and Computer Science Erhardt Graeff. This small team of Olin students have been helping Frances think through plans and ideas for her goal of creating a tech ethics and reform movement at college campuses around the nation.

Check out a photo gallery from the event.