I was excited when I heard that Frances Haugen was going to speak at our South City campus on Thursday, November 7th.
She was a major player in exposing Facebook of intentionally misleading the public by putting profit before empathy. As a former Lead Product Manager for Facebook’s Civic Misinformation team, which dealt with issues related to democracy and misinformation, she was a major national speaker that our school chose to bring to campus. Kudos.
She presented a moving and, at times, poignant dialogue on the faults of a system such as Facebook and others with no checks and balances, primarily toward younger populations. Her speech was excellent, what happened next was very sad.
Rather than having a question-and-answer session with Ms. Haugen, a panel of local yahoos was assembled on stage, which had nothing to do with the main topic of her talk. I left sad and disappointed and cheated. One purpose of a higher education is to question and participate in meaningful dialogue. Problems can’t be solved if we can’t speak, and at this event we were not allowed to speak!
Looks like just another example of administrators deciding what’s best for students with no student input. As a student at SLCC I expect much more.
