A whistleblower accused Facebook on Sunday of placing “profit over safety”, as it emerged that she had complained to US securities regulators that the social media company was misleading investors.

Speaking on the news programme 60 Minutes, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, unmasked herself as the whistleblower who leaked a trove of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal. Her revelations have plunged the social media company into its deepest crisis since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Haugen suggested that Facebook had lied to the public, exaggerating the progress it had made tackling hate, violence, and misinformation on its platform, presenting “tens of thousands” of pages of documents as evidence.

... “We stand by our public statements and are ready to answer any questions regulators may have about our work,” Lena Pietsch, Facebook’s director of policy communications, said in a statement on Sunday following the 60 Minutes broadcast.

“Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” she added. “To say we turn a blind eye to feedback ignores these investments, including the 40,000 people working on safety and security at Facebook and our investment of $13bn since 2016.”