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The reporters who exposed Facebook's inner workings

Jennifer Lipman meets a reporter whose damning book about the inner workings of Mark Zuckerman’s Metaverse became a bestseller

May 31, 2022 08:56
Frenkel and Kang - credit Beowulf Sheehan
8 min read


Some writers might feel a shiver of trepidation before taking on one of the world’s most powerful businesses. But after 10 years reporting in the Middle East, Sheera Frenkel’s attitude to delving into Facebook’s dirty secrets was: what’s the worst that could happen?
“I worked within regimes which were quite threatening to journalists, the last story I covered was the spread of Isis, so I spent a lot of my career reporting on terror organisations which didn’t want to be reported on,” she explains. There, the worst possibility was being kidnapped or attacked; she figured any response from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg would be manageable. “What were they going to do to me, spy on me, kick me off Instagram?”
Frenkel, a San Francisco-based tech reporter for the New York Times, is one of the co-authors of the bestselling An Ugly Truth, alongside Cecilia Kang, which pulls no punches in its takedown of the social networking giant and its founder.


Still, aware of Facebook’s reach, she took precautions to keep her sources safe, writing in notebooks rather than web-connected systems. It was hardly paranoia; the book records plenty of privacy breaches, not least the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Recently out in paperback, it points a finger at Zuckerberg for not addressing allegations of fermenting violence in Myanmar, nor responding to the rise of Russian-orchestrated misinformation ahead of the 2016 US election — an oversight that comes across as even more serious in light of the invasion of Ukraine.
“If you want to look at the entire trajectory of what Russia has done, you have to look way back in 2013 when they were defacing the pages of Estonian politicians, and going after Ukrainian and Latvian MPs that were not pro-Russia and trying to spread rumours,” says Frenkel. She often wonders how different things would have been “if in the very first days” Facebook had dedicated serious resources to the problem.
Admittedly it was a threat few took seriously then. But Frenkel and Kang portray a tendency within Facebook to overlook problems, only for them to balloon — often because issues emerge “in countries where Facebook is understaffed, or doesn’t have as many language resources”. By the time the issues are on their doorstep, it’s too late. “There is a pattern of Facebook playing catch up.”
Her view is this is a consequence of how the organisation is run. “The people we spoke to didn’t ascribe malice to Zuckerberg and Sandberg ignoring warnings [on disinformation and other security issues],” she says. “They just said it was the systems in place, the sheer amount of things that come across their desks and what they prioritise.” Even with their security team “waving their arms”, the top team were “doing what they always did which was focusing on growth”.
She worries history will repeat. Since the book first came out, Facebook has rebranded as Meta and detailed plans to introduce users to a new virtual reality. “With the metaverse, people are saying you’re racing ahead with the technology and we have not figured out how we can possibly in real time stop the harassment and abuse of people,” Frenkel says. She thinks problems people experience on Facebook are only going to be amplified there. “Imagine a woman who is harassed on Instagram or Facebook. How much worse is that going to feel if she’s seen in three dimensions, if she’s wearing a haptic vest which vibrates across her body to simulate touch? These things are going to be more visceral.”
Likewise, Frenkel raises potential security and privacy issues. “They are talking about introducing into people’s homes tools that track your eye movement, your pulse, your gait. If you think it’s invasive to have these companies track your likes and dislikes, can you imagine how much more invasive it is when they have your physical attributes?”
Accordingly, getting safety precautions right now is key. Frenkel is watching closely the progression of online harms legislation here, in contrast to the “slow moving” Congress. “It’s going to be quite interesting to see what is passed in the UK because that might push US companies to take action.”
The book focuses heavily on splits between Zuckerberg and his de-facto deputy Sandberg, presenting them as running almost entirely separate fiefdoms. Frenkel mentions a woman called Yael Eisenstat, an ex-CIA operative hired on Sandberg’s “side” to work on election-related policies. “She wasn’t even told about parallel efforts happening on Mark’s side of the company,” says Frenkel.
Naturally, no Facebook story could be written without dwelling on the 2016 US election; not just allegations of Russian meddling, but the way Trump’s team utilised the platform. Frenkel sees that as a turning point, when Facebook began to be forced to pay attention to issues that were setting in — primarily because they were happening on US soil, rather than in, say, Latin America.