In a memo, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs, told staffers on Saturday to “steel”. [themselves]Expect more bad headlines as news outlets start to publish new claims from Frances Haugen, whistleblower.
Clegg, who was previously the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister, warned in the email that new coverage may contain ‘mischaracterizations of our research, our motives and where our priorities lie,’ and told employees to ‘listen and learn from criticism when it is fair, and push back strongly when its not.’
According to Axios, he wrote to Facebook employees, “But above everything else,” he said to them. “We should keep up our heads and do the job we came to do.”
He spoke in the context of two dozen outlets that obtained new revelations from Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower. They broke an embargo that was due to expire Monday and began printing fresh revelations.
These included Facebook’s difficulty in determining how many active users its social network has, and the fact it is afraid of being perceived as having a liberal bias that it bends over backwards to avoid imposing its rules on conservative publishers.
Nick Clegg (pictured, Facebook’s VP of Global Affairs who was previously the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister, warned in the email that new coverage may contain ‘mischaracterizations of our research, our motives and where our priorities lie,’ and told employees to ‘listen and learn from criticism when it is fair, and push back strongly when its not’
Facebook also was found to have relaxed its rules regarding suppression of’misinformation’ after the 2020 presidential election. This move was blamed as contributing to the January 6 riots.
Clegg reminded Facebook employees that the company had made investments in safety and security, including efforts at increasing voting and vaccination rates.
‘The truth is we’ve invested $13 billion and have over 40,000 people to do one job: keep people safe on Facebook,’ he wrote.
Haugen, a former product manger on Facebook’s civic misinformation group, left the company with tens to thousands of confidential documents she had secretly copied.
She testified before Congress on October 5th, asking for more transparency about the company’s morally questionable practices that keep users scrolling. She also stated that executives have ‘no desire to run the company in such a way as to protect the public from the harmful effects of harmful content.
Haugen testified and was backed up by documents that Facebook was acutely aware its negative impact on teen girls’ body image and its role in human traficking. The platform also had an elite user list that wasn’t subject to the same posting rules that were applied to other users.
Since, Facebook has announced plans to rename its parent company as the series of scandals has left its reputation bruised: Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is set to reveal the parent company’s new name at its annual Connect conference on October 28, but it could well be leaked before then.
Facebook will still be the name for the social media platform, but the parent company which also owns Instagram (and WhatsApp) will use a different name.
Approximately two-dozen news organizations, including the Associated Press and Reuters, The New York Times and The Washington Post, CNNs, NBC News, CBS Newss, USA Today, Financial Timess, The Atlantic, Fox Businesss, NPRs, Bloomberg, Politicos, Wired, and USA Today agreed to release a new batch by Haugen up until Monday.
However, Friday’s revelations led to a complete collapse of the plan.
The Wall Street Journal was not part the agreement but added some of these new revelations in its ‘The Facebook Files series, which began on Oct 1.
The agreement, known as the “Facebook Consortium”, was dissolved Friday when The Wall Street Journal published new documents.
They also showed Facebook’s involvement in the January 6th riot at Capitol. These were part of a leaked set which was given to Conglomerate on October 10.
New York Times reporter Sheera Frankel confirmed via Twitter on Friday that the embargo lifted after the Wall Street Journal released the documents ahead of schedule.
Frances Haugen (pictured), whistleblower, was a former product manager for Facebook’s civic misinformation group. She left the company with tens, thousands of confidential documents that were copied in secret.
Sheera Frankel, a reporter for the New York Times, confirmed via Twitter Friday that the embargo was lifted after the Wall Street Journal published the documents earlier than scheduled
Before Friday, the newsrooms involved in the release agreed via Slack to a set of terms. They would release the documents on Monday. They also stated that they would not approach the company until a specific time after publication.
John Pinette, Facebook’s Vice President of Communications, sent a tweet to news organizations in an attempt to ascertain the content of leaked documents earlier.
On October 18, he wrote, “To those news organisations who would like to go beyond an orchestrated campaign of “gotcha”, we are open to engaging on the substance.”
John Pinette, Facebook’s Vice President of Communications, sent a tweet to news organizations in an attempt to ascertain the contents of leaked documents earlier.
He wrote that ‘To those news organisations who would like to go beyond an orchestrated campaign of “gotcha”, we are open to engaging on the substance’ on October 18
Two sources close enough to the situation said that Facebook never received the leaked new documents. Axios did not confirm this.
Two sources close to the situation confirmed to Axios that Facebook never received the leaked documents.
Axios reported that a number of news outlets managed to obtain documents from members Congress in order to avoid being charged with illegally obtained information.