Discussion

• @craigsilverman Craig Silverman on x

  BREAKING: A 6,600-word internal memo from a former Facebook data scientist exposes how the social network knew about specific examples of global political manipulation with fake accounts — and failed to act. W/ @RMac18 & @PranavDixit: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @rmac18 Ryan Mac on x

  This is the most important Facebook story I've ever published: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  So much of what we discuss about Facebook is from a US perspective. The problem is that Facebook's own leadership takes that approach as well, according to a now former employee who helped uncover political influence campaigns on the platform. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x

  Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a former Facebook employee https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @marietjeschaake Marietje Schaake on x

  If I were a journalist I would look around the world into which political campaigns Facebook staff volunteered to coach on the use of its platform to optimize for impact. This was offered to me as well when I was a Member of European Parliament, free staff training etc. ↘️ https:…

• @lorenzofb Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai on x

  Welp. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...

• @carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x

  Yet another devastating story about Facebook. Huge kudos to Sophie Zhang, an employee who turned down $64k severance to tell the truth. The speed & scale of the damage Facebook is doing to democracies around the world is truly terrifying https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @marietjeschaake Marietje Schaake on x

  Warnings from all over the world on how democratic rights of people were being undermined were ignored and ridiculed by FB reps and US politicians alike. God forbid oversight would stifle innovation 1/2 https://twitter.com/...

• @taffyakner Taffy Brodesser-Akner on x

  I cannot for the life of me figure out why I'm still on social media. It is so bad for us. It is so full of delusions of connectivity, information-passing, everything. https://twitter.com/...

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  @guyro Posts on FB are literally put in front of ppl by an algorithm based on what type of engagement it has. Are you saying detecting fake likes is not important? Beyond this, be more specific. There are more than a dozen examples outlined in her post. What are you referring to?

• @gregolear Greg Olear on x

  Zuckerberg is bad, BTW. In case you were on the fence. https://twitter.com/...

• @billmckibben Bill McKibben on x

  Read this very brave whistleblower. Facebook has made the world an infinitely worse place, enabling horrible people to do horrible things. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @jgreenblattadl Jonathan Greenblatt on x

  This report on Facebook is damning. It is further confirmation that they are more concerned with PR than with protecting democracy or its users. This is exactly why individuals are speaking out & “freezing” their Instagram accounts this Wednesday. #StopHateForProfit. https://twit…

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  This is extraordinary. I presume the journalists who vetted this have done the work, and that FB will find counter these claims. But. Holy. Shit. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @jlawrence_repus Jennifer Lawrence on x

  Facebook ignores hate & disinformation on their site. This is not an “operational mistake.” It is a deliberate decision to put profits over people and democracy. Tell Facebook to #StopHateForProfit. https://stophateforprofit.org/ https://twitter.com/...

• @wyp100 Wesley Yin-Poole on x

  Well that was definitely coming and deserved. Poor from Kepa and from Chelsea

• @buzzfeednews @buzzfeednews on x

  NEW: Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts have been undermining elections and political affairs, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired employee. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @jeffbercovici Jeff Bercovici on x

  Facebook, which made $23 billion in profit last year, can't investigate election manipulation in most of the world because it lacks the resources. https://twitter.com/...

• @justinbrookman Justin Brookman on x

  Facebook's algorithms reward artificial engagement while the company severely underfunds programs to police for it. “We simply didn't care enough to stop them.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @manaman_chhina Man Aman Singh Chhina on x

  “In India, she worked to remove “a politically-sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence” the local elections taking place in Delhi in February. Facebook never publicly disclosed this network or that it had taken it down”. https://twitter.com/...

• @guyro Guy Rosen on x

  @RMac18 With all due respect, what she's described is fake likes - which we routinely remove using automated detection. Like any team in the industry or government, we prioritize stopping the most urgent and harmful threats globally. Fake likes is not one of them.

• @parkermolloy Parker Molloy on x

  “'I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I've lost count,' she wrote.” WOW. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @nathanielpopper Nathaniel Popper on x

  Facebook employee: Looks like the ruling party in Azerbaijan is using FB to harass the opposition “en masse” [9 months later] Facebook: We're going to start looking into that. one of so many devastating details in this @BuzzFeedNews story https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https:/…

• @shiraovide Shira Ovide on x

  I have to go sit in a dark room for a long time. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... The scale of manipulation on Facebook outside the U.S. described here is just...terrifying. As is the torment of a relatively junior employee who felt unsupported in trying to tamp it down.

• @mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x

  Good story but I still find the basic presumptions underlying Facebook coverage to be weird — why would they take action to prevent their platform from being used for political manipulation? The idea is to get rich selling ads. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  Major scoop by BuzzFeed team. This raises the curtain on issues of concern which Parliaments from around the world have been trying to elevate in the eyes of the public and the regulators charged with protecting civil society. https://twitter.com/...

• @liz_shepherd Liz Bourgeois on x

  @RMac18 Sharing our response here as you're too quick! We are not ignoring these issues. CIB continues to be our top priority but we have teams working on fake engagement too - in fact many of the cases she mentions are under active investigation. https://twitter.com/...

• @mollymckew Molly McKew on x

  Every detail of this story is damning. At some point tho, it's time for this belief that there “isn't bad intent” just “not enough resources” or “simply not caring enough” to rectify into the reality of willful negligence 5 full years on from knowing Facebook erodes reality. http…

• @lukeobrien Luke O'Brien on x

  We do, though, have to start asking whether Zuckerberg is simply an immoral greedhead or something else entirely. He has abetted vast amounts of authoritarianism, racist extremism and disinfo on his platform. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @janelytv Jane Lytvynenko on x

  “I know that I have blood on my hands by now,” she wrote in the memo. https://twitter.com/...

• @benedictevans Benedict Evans on x

  Another dumb response to this would be to say you should break Facebook up. okay, so now what do people in Honduras use, and how is that managed? You haven't solve the problem at all. It's not as though any other platform does this any better.

• @tinuevel Tired Tita Diaries on x

  the Philippines has told you all about this but you all have ignored it because we don't matter. We have been the testing ground of Facebook before deploying before the 2016 US elections, but you don't care, because we're a country you all think you have the right to abuse. https…

• @wiczipedia Nina Jankowicz on x

  Upsetting but not surprising story from @CraigSilverman @RMac18 @PranavDixit details how Facebook prioritizes the US and Western Europe in its policy response. An internal memo from a FB data scientist lists Ukraine among the countries affected. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  dear press, next time Sandberg or Zuckerberg interview lands in your lap please remember this, Myanmar and everything in between. I know those interviews are a big deal but press friction and antitrust lawsuits are the only way we get anywhere here. https://twitter.com/...

• @brianstelter Brian Stelter on x

  “A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew about specific examples of global political manipulation — and failed to act.” https://twitter.com/...

• @karlbode Karl Bode on x

  I have sympathy to the “moderation at scale is hard” argument, but it's increasingly clear these companies didn't even try https://twitter.com/...

• @dnvolz Dustin Volz on x

  This article is a good reminder that just because Facebook does press-friendly announcements of takedowns of malicious networks from time to time, there is no real mechanism to gauge how much of a grip the company has on its own infinitely vast platform. https://www.buzzfeednews.…

• @bcrypt Yan on x

  my friend sophie got fired from her job at Facebook and turned down a $64,000 severance package in order to leak this, so u better read it. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @slpng_giants @slpng_giants on x

  If you're an advertiser on @facebook, you are literally sponsoring political manipulation that is tearing the world apart. There's just no other way to look at it. #StopHateForProfit https://twitter.com/...

• @bronwendickey Bronwen Dickey on x

  The only thing keeping me from completely deleting my FB account is needing to use it to find/contact sources, especially sources who live in rural areas. Have any other writers found ways around this? https://twitter.com/...

• @anylaurie16 Laurie Kilmartin on x

  “Zhang... turned down a $64,000 severance package from the company to avoid signing a nondisparagement agreement” https://twitter.com/...

• @thom_hartmann Thom Hartmann on x

  It's time to, at the least, eliminate Facebook's statutory limitations on publication liability. @RonWyden “I Have Blood On My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... via @CraigSilverman

• @clarajeffery @clarajeffery on x

  Whole lot of good Germans at Facebook. The ones who act with moral integrity, like Sophie Zhang and Ashok Chandwaney, are far too rare given the stakes. https://twitter.com/...

• @benedictevans Benedict Evans on x

  The striking thing about today's BuzzFeed Facebook story is not that it wasn't on top of fake news in Honduras, but rather the complete insanity of one company in Menlo Park even trying to be on top of every level of political discourse in every country on Earth

• @pashulman Peter A. Shulman on x

  Facebook simply cannot continue to exist if it cannot manage the inevitable problems its platform creates. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @ashk4n Ashkan Soltani on x

  I also expect brands/advertisers will go after @Facebook for their fraudulent & inflated ad engagement numbers implicated by this memo: “10.5 million fake reactions” “672,000 fake accounts” That translates into real $$ https://twitter.com/...

• @oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x

  It takes tremendous hubris to look at what Facebook is doing to countries around the world and assume it can't happen here. https://www.vice.com/...

• @wildwildjest @wildwildjest on x

  First Myanmar, then Brazil, next Ethiopia, here too. I don't see a way around this: Facebook is a leading cause of radicalization — specifically via misinformation and directionally straight towards violence https://twitter.com/...

• @bwreed Brad Reed on x

  It's time to organize a mass campaign to quit Facebook. This company is evil. https://twitter.com/...

• @revkin Andrew Revkin on x

  Tough @daithaigilbert story on hate-amplifying power of Facebook. Watch The @SocialDilemma_ on @netflix to gauge the full scope of this. Like so many, I was once an online optimist. Ahh those days.. https://twitter.com/...

• @sivavaid @sivavaid on x

  Once again: The problem with Facebook is NOT Donald Trump. It's not even America. Facebook is much more dangerous elsewhere. https://www.vice.com/... via @vice

• @daithaigilbert David Gilbert on x

  In Myanmar, #Facebook ignored warnings about hate speech inciting violence against the Rohingya. The result was a UN report saying said Facebook facilitated a genocide. Now, in #Ethiopia, Facebook is making the same mistakes all over again https://www.vice.com/...

• @parkermolloy Parker Molloy on x

  Starting to think this Facebook thing isn't great for humanity https://www.vice.com/...