The Facebook Papers: In the wake of last week’s Congressional testimony, “[j]ournalists from a variety of newsrooms, large and small, worked together to gain access to thousands of pages of internal company documents obtained by Frances Haugen [@FrancesHaugen], the former Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower.”
Reporting and analysis on various aspects of the Facebook Papers have been provided by a variety of news outlets, including:
- The Wall Street Journal (previously on Metafilter): “Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.”
- The Washington Post: “A trove of internal Facebook documents reveals that the social media giant has privately and meticulously tracked real-world harms exacerbated by its platforms, ignored warnings from its employees about the risks of their design decisions and exposed vulnerable communities around the world to a cocktail of dangerous content.”
- New York Times: “Key revelations included how Facebook executives handled politicized lies, including Donald J. Trump’s claims of election fraud. Often, the company chose to let misinformation spread widely, to keep more people logging on. The series also noted the lengths that Facebook went to in its desperation to hang on to its audience as young people drifted away from its platforms.”
- Rolling Stone: “”The Facebook Files,” as the stories were dubbed, revealed the extent to which the company was aware of the damage its platforms were doing to everything from the push to get Americans vaccinated to the self-esteem of teenage girls. Misinformation was spreading. Hate speech was rampant. People were even using Facebook to sell human organs.”
- NPR: “Haugen alleges that the trove of statements and data prove that Facebook’s leaders have repeatedly and knowingly put the company’s image and profitability ahead of the public good — even at the risk of violence and other harm.”
- CNN: “One of the documents details a June 2019 study called “Carol’s Journey to QAnon,” designed to see what pages and groups Facebook’s algorithms would promote to an account designed to look like it was run by a 41-year-old conservative mom named Carol Smith. After “Carol” followed verified pages for conservative figures such as Fox News and Donald Trump, it took just two days for Facebook’s algorithm to recommend she follow a QAnon page.”
- Time: “The documents, confirmed by multiple news outlets, reveal that problems with hate speech and disinformation are dramatically worse in the developing world, where content moderation is often weaker. In India, Facebook reportedly did not have enough resources or expertise in the country’s 22 officially recognized languages, leaving the company unable to grapple with a rise in anti-Muslim posts and fake accounts tied to the country’s ruling party and opposition figures.”
- The Atlantic: “Facebook employees have long understood that their company undermines democratic norms and restraints in America and across the globe. Facebook’s hypocrisies, and its hunger for power and market domination, are not secret. Nor is the company’s conflation of free speech and algorithmic amplification. But the events of January 6 proved for many people—including many in Facebook’s workforce—to be a breaking point.”
Significant discussion has also occurred under the Twitter hashtag #FacebookPapers and the #facebook tag on Mastodon.