# Frances Haugen

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Frances Haugen," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/frances-haugen/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The Facebook employee John Kiriakou refuses to call a whistleblower, arguing that against the legal definition, bringing to light waste, fraud, abuse, illegality or threats to public health or safety, she qualifies as a corporate spokesperson whose motive was to improve the company's bottom line, not to expose wrongdoing.*

- **Kiriakou's verdict:** Not a whistleblower; a corporate spokesperson
- **Motive he ascribes:** To make Facebook a stronger company
- **Test applied:** The legal definition of whistleblowing
- **Paired case:** An unnamed Twitter hacker whose remedy was more censorship

**Frances Haugen** is the former Facebook employee whose 2021 disclosures [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) declines to classify as whistleblowing, in an argument he makes as part of a broader claim that the term is being deliberately blurred.

## The question put to him

Kiriakou was asked whether there is an effort to smudge the definition of a whistleblower, given a run of figures coming forward with disclosures that happened to reinforce the state's preferred narrative that more censorship was required.[1] He called it *"a very important question, actually."*[1]

## The test

He began from the statutory ground, noting that many people do not know one exists: whistleblowing is *"bringing to light any evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality or threats to the public health or public safety."*[1] The fuller treatment is at [the legal definition of whistleblowing](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-legal-definition-of-whistleblowing).

## The verdict

Against that test Kiriakou placed Haugen's motive rather than her documents. *"Francis Hagen, in my view, is not only not a whistleblower, she's just a corporate spokesperson. What was her her motivation for coming forward? Her motivation was to make Facebook a stronger company. Her motivation was to was to improve Facebook's bottom line. It wasn't to expose wrongdoing."*[1] (The auto-caption renders her surname as *Hagen*; the reference is to Frances Haugen.)

He applied the same conclusion to a Twitter figure raised in the same question, a hacker who, in Kiriakou's account, *"was working with officers of the CIA and the FBI and the NSA to squelch free speech on Twitter."*[2]

## The missing evidence

The second half of his objection is about proof. Kiriakou said he repeats it *"like a mantra"*: allegations of wrongdoing arrive without access to the primary source documents.[2] *"Well, if you're going to throw a grenade into the middle of the room, don't expect people just to nod their heads and thank you for it. I want to see what the evidence is... If you're going to make an accusation and call yourself a whistleblower, let me decide that. Let me judge you. And that's just not what we're seeing."*[3]

## See also

- [The legal definition of whistleblowing](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-legal-definition-of-whistleblowing)
- [Leaker versus whistleblower](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/leaker-versus-whistleblower)
- [CIA and FBI embedded at social media firms](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-fbi-social-media-embed)

## Sources

1. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 29:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1770s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/
2. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 30:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1808s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/
3. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 30:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1841s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/frances-haugen/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt