Facebook says WSJ's series contained deliberate mischaracterizations and conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook's leadership and employees
and burying the findings Charlie Osborne / ZDNet : Facebook rebukes WSJ over investigation on the platform's ability to harm, ‘toxic’ impact Parmy Olson / Bloomberg : Facebook's Beloved Growth Team Has Set Off Alarms Ali Velshi / MSNBC : Roger McNamee: criminal investigations need to be launched into Facebook's role in enabling extremist groups, human trafficking, illegal commerce, and more Source Code / Protocol : The cost of free college Benjamin Din / Politico : Senate Commerce faces brain drain Nalin Rawat / fossbytes.com : Facebook VP Refutes Reports On Recent Company Leaks Charlesarthur / The Overspill : Start Up No.1640: Russia forces Apple, Google and Telegram climbdowns, Facebook responds to WSJ stories, Amazon zaps 3,000 brands, and more Steven Musil / CNET : Facebook slams WSJ series for ‘deliberate mischaracterizations’ Tim Richardson / The Register : Clegg on its face: Facebook turns to former UK deputy PM to fend off damaging headlines Taylor Borden / Insider : Facebook fires back at damning Wall Street Journal reports that accuse the company of being ‘riddled with flaws’ Josiah Motley / KnowTechie : Facebook claps back at the Wall Street Journal over reports of favoritism and mental health Caroline Vakil / The Hill : Facebook: Wall Street Journal series ‘contained deliberate mischaracterizations’ Alyse Stanley / Gizmodo : Facebook VP Disputes Reports That Company Ignored Platform-Wide Issues Harming Users Mike Allen / Axios : In an interview, Nick Clegg said Facebook will try to provide more data to outside researchers to scrutinize the health of activity on Facebook and Instagram John Johnson / Newser : Facebook Begs to Differ With Scathing Investigative Report Benzinga : Facebook Responds To WSJ Reports On The Impact Of Instagram On The Mental Health Of Teen Girls Nathaniel Mott / PCMag : Facebook Decries Wall Street Journal Reporting on Internal Research South China Morning Post : China tells Wall Street tech crackdown aims to ‘reduce social anxiety’ United States Senator Richard Blumenthal : Blumenthal & Blackburn Announce Probe Into Facebook Coverup of its Platforms' Negative Impact on Teens & Children Tweets: Andy Stone / @andymstone : As the Wall Street Journal itself makes clear, we have a team of experts who help us uncover patterns of harmful behavior so we can disrupt it. We've got arguably more experts and resources dedicated to this work than any other consumer technology company in the world. Mary Beth Hunzaker / @mbfhunzaker : But to say the main reason you can't act on your own researchers' recs is bc they're proposing interventions w implications “worse than the proposed fix” ? like they & their eng/prod/ds/des teammates didn't already put in legwork to think things through?? 🙅♀️ https://twitter.com/... Nick Clegg / @nickclegg : The @WSJ series raises serious & complex issues. It's absolutely legitimate for Facebook to be held to account. But it contains deliberate mischaracterizations of what we are trying to do & confers egregiously false motives to our leadership & employees. https://about.fb.com/... Brian Waismeyer / @skwrlz : I. am. fucking. livid. all product work gets evaluated for risk: failure, bad PR, liability, harm, etc. but integrity product work - which focuses on reducing the chance or severity of the “harm” part of those risks - gets held to such an absurdly higher standard. https://twitter.com/... Mary Beth Hunzaker / @mbfhunzaker : Sorry, FBs own statement does far more to impugn the hard work of FB integrity researchers than the WSJ. Sure there's a lot frustrating abt the series- doesn't spend time on the wins or on hard work done after the research, collabing with XFN to propose & craft interventions... https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Substack is running recruiting ads to Facebook employees after the WSJ reports... https://twitter.com/... szhang_ds : I've now heard from a number of current/former FB researchers who are deeply offended, not by the WSJ's reporting, but FB's official statement via Clegg. https://twitter.com/... @pinboard : Part of the answer lies in a radical distrust of existing institutions, which if not born in 2008 certainly crystallized then. Another part of the answer has to do with how social media gives every subculture global reach. Another is in the architecture of persuasion and virality Nick Clegg / @nickclegg : @WSJ Its central allegation is just plain false: that we systematically & willfully ignore research that is inconvenient. This impugns the motives & hard work of the researchers, experts & engineers who strive to improve the quality of our products and understand their wider impact. Tarleton Gillespie / @tarletong : What a generous, humble, thoughtful response, so willing to take criticism seriously—oh sorry, must have misread every aspect of Facebook's reply to the WSJ, which is defensive, haughty, tone-deaf, and just plain Cleggy. Failing also at damage control. https://about.fb.com/... @yaeleisenstat : No @nickclegg, your take (see screenshot) is the opposite of the actual takeaway: the series doesn't impugn hard-working employees who want to make Facebook better. It impugns leadership for repeatedly lying about what FB knows & for business decisions they knew prioritized... 1/ https://twitter.com/... @blackamazon : Except I have had discussions with your staff and been in meetings w#ith you where that is demonstrably true https://twitter.com/... Cory Doctorow Afk / @doctorow : Reminder that you can't fix something from the inside that shouldn't exist in the first place. https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Good - they should walk out the door. Clegg pretty clearly was hired to protect Sandberg and Zuckerberg as much as Facebook Inc. His post demonstrates this. Also disappointed in this anonymous poll appearing to show 2/3 of employees don't care or don't even know about it. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Bob Pickard / @bobpickard : Can anyone who has read the damning @WSJ series on @Facebook still believe that it is not an evil company? https://twitter.com/... @pinboard : I think making Facebook the villain, while always fun, takes us past the foundational problem here. Why people are so ready to be radicalized, including into some nonsensical directions like flat earthism, is a bigger question than can fit into a scheme of heroes and villains. https://twitter.com/... Grady Booch / @grady_booch : @nickclegg @WSJ Facebook does not systematically and willfully ignore research because it is inconvenient. Facebook systematically and willfully ignores research because it impacts profit. @cpo10za : @MSNBC @grudging1 I'm related to a few of the people that FB radicalized into QAnon. A couple of them went to the insurrection. It's a straight through-line, & I'm frustrated that Congress isn't holding FB/social media more accountable. Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : While @nickclegg is worth the money they pay him, this defense needs to be much more than “it's complex” and pretend the reports were personal, given the long history of Facebook's glossing over major problems: What the WSJ Got Wrong https://about.fb.com/... @samthielman : honestly the outraged cant is sort of funny in a hideous way. “Facebook censors dissidents, broadcasts snuff videos for cartel recruitment, and sells slaves” “...uh, how DARE you impugn the purity of our motives just because we happen to be very rich!” https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : This thread by @pinboard does a good job of laying out the issues. The internet helps people find a global community and not every community is good. Some of these not good ones are also quite large (46% of Americans voters voted for Trump in 2020). You can't censor them all. https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : There's a belief perpetrated by the media that if social media companies just censored or moderated enough content then people wouldn't be antivax or Jan 6th wouldn't have happened. This is contradicted by everything we know about human history & behavior https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Rep. Ken Buck / @repkenbuck : Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco. They are harming our kids for profit. https://www.cnn.com/... Brian Waismeyer / @skwrlz : the result - whether FB leadership intends it or not - is that integrity experts and their work are CONSTANTLY undermined and the integrity efforts that succeed and thrive tend to be the ones that reduce liability / PR risk vs the ones that will do the best job at harm reduction Laura Edelson / @lauraedelson2 : No, @andymstone, I wouldn't rather Facebook didn't do this research. But it is a betrayal to both Facebook's users and to the many employees who did this research to disregard the clear findings of harm to users. And that falls squarely on upper management. Who. knew. Laura Edelson / @lauraedelson2 : I and many other researchers have spent years of our lives trying to understand if the harms people were experiencing on Facebook were anecdotal or systemic. We learned this week that Facebook researchers were far, far ahead of us. The harms are systemic. And they knew. Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Remember when this guy destroyed his political party? https://twitter.com/... @yaeleisenstat : ...profit over the public good. In fact, here is a much more accurate depiction of the key takeaway of @JeffHorwitz's @WSJ series (from @CraigSilverman) and a quick added take from my own experience working at FB: 2/ https://twitter.com/... Stephen Diehl / @smdiehl : No, Facebookers systemically and willfully avoid asking a single question: Should our product even exist because it's so destructive to the social order? It's the question no employee can ask. And the answer is a resounding No. https://twitter.com/... Laura Edelson / @lauraedelson2 : Facebook has lost the right for anyone to assume they are acting in good faith. Upper management acted recklessly with their users' mental and even their physical safety. It's time for legislation. @SenAmyKlobuchar, @ChrisCoons, @MarkWarner are thinking about this, I know. Craig Walmsley / @craig_walmsley : @axios @mikeallen How about trying not to be the world's most powerful platform for propaganda, disinformation and psychological manipulation? Hope the money keeps you warm at night @nickclegg. Doug Lindner / @douglindner : It's wild to me that people are constantly writing “Facebook VP of global affairs Nick Clegg” stories without even mentioning that Clegg was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as recently as 2015. Imagine if it was America's #2 leader from 2015, [checks notes] Joe Biden https://twitter.com/... Tom Merritt / @acedtect : There's an easy way to combat the @WSJ reports @nickclegg Open up @Facebook research. @nyuniversity scientist have some good ideas on how to do that. https://about.fb.com/... @pinboard : For people who don't know my work, I've been beating on Facebook like a piñata ever since I was on MySpace. it brings me comfort and happiness. But I also think we need to find a way to step out of the social media thunderdome and find a way to understand and fix this dynamic. Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : This company is a blight on humanity. It's rotten through and through. Good people go to work for it and try to reform it and they either get corrupted by the money or chewed up and spat out. It cannot be fixed. @pinboard : As people like @alexstamos have rightly pointed out, this whole cauldron of outrage creates powerful disincentives for the social media giants—the only ones who have the data—to study what is going on. You don't have to worry about subpoenas for research you never conducted. @pinboard : Most of these are questions of human nature—we are a social species whose biology and culture is set up for life in small and gossipy local groups. Taking the “local” and “small” out of that equation has been a great social experiment enabled by the internet. It's not going well Jeff Pooley / @jeffersonpooley : “We need to talk about Facebook research.” A good, short commentary on FB Research—the Faustian and on-balance unethical pact that its researchers make, knowing their research will be subordinated to, or put in service of, clicks and profit—by @StevenLevy https://link.wired.com/... Jonathan O'Connell / @jocwapo : I don't know this person and I don't work for the Journal but this response is just an embarrassment. I get that your job is PR but how far does this company have to fall before it realizes the image isn't the problem? https://twitter.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : “I got to the point where I was concerned about polarization on the platform, just racial polarization, around George Floyd and last summer, and continuing to see the lack of effort to understand different categories of polarization, that was enough for me...” -@brianboland https://twitter.com/... @ccdhate : This thread from @NickClegg is disappointing. He suggests @WSJ is attacking Facebook staff - nonsense. Facebook staff were producing this data to warn leadership - it leaked because they were ignored. The problem is greedy, indifferent, immoral leadership. https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : I really do think Julia said it best. This entire thread. Thank you. https://twitter.com/... Joe Bernstein / @bernstein : I think the most significant omission from this statement is any challenge to the WSJs reporting on Facebook and the Global South https://about.fb.com/... Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : At least some of the public vitriol against Facebook stems from something this PR response still seems not to understand — or at least fails to mention. Facebook lives on user transparency, but the company, itself, seems disdainful of transparency. https://about.fb.com/... Hadi Hariri / @hhariri : This is very true. It makes me really sad when folks that I appreciate and admire end up going to Facebook. They may have their reasons no doubt, but it's still very disappointing. https://twitter.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : This is a really good discussion, especially @brianboland's thoughts on how measurement/comp models need to change for Facebook to address these issues. https://twitter.com/... Stella Rose Biderman / @blancheminerva : @Facebook has taken courses from @GoogleAI in gaslighting it seems. @WSJ is hardly the first to document the wide-spread, sanctioned, and systematic abuse of moderation powers at Facebook, but it seems there's always a deeper rabbithole. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Had an awesome conversation with @JeffHorwitz of the WSJ and ex-Facebook executive @brianboland about the Facebook Files. I enjoyed it because we discussed both problems and solutions, and included reporter & tech executive points of view. Check it out: https://open.spotify.com/... @samidh : In my view, it's actually not uncommon for FB researchers working on societal issues to feel ignored, or at least grossly underweighted, in decisions that have public policy or growth tradeoffs. @nickclegg, perhaps you can do an internal 2way Q&A to understand their POV? https://twitter.com/... Dustin Volz / @dnvolz : This Facebook statement huffs and puffs about “mischaracterizations” and “lop-sided views” but what it lacks is a refutation of any specific facts reported by WSJ. https://twitter.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : It may be possible to run a social network for 3 billion people in a responsible way, though I doubt it, but there is no doubt that Facebook cannot and will not do it. The people in charge of this company are unfit. Mitigating harms until it can be dismantled has to be the goal. Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : The man in charge of “integrity” at Facebook founded a VPN that FB bought and used to spy on users - including explicitly targeting teenagers - in order to undercut competitors. There's no reforming it. It' just sanctimonious self-justification of immorality through and through. David Gilbert / @daithaigilbert : In many countries like Ethiopia (an example Stone cites) Facebook is THE INTERNET, so saying it has more resources than other companies means nothing. Until recently FB had no staff in Ethiopia & it's community standards weren't available in the country's two main languages https://twitter.com/... Cole Garry / @colegarry2 : I'm not going to pretend posts like this are easy to write but it remains astounding how consistently Facebook botches crisis comms https://about.fb.com/... Nick Clegg / @nickclegg : We understand the responsibility that comes with operating a global platform. We take it seriously, and we don't shy away from scrutiny and criticism. But we fundamentally reject this mischaracterization of our work and motives. Nick Clegg / @nickclegg : It'd be really worrisome if Facebook didn't do this sort of research in the first place. We do it to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask difficult questions about how people interact at scale with social media. Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : It's actually very funny that it took them a week to come up with “how dare you impugn the motives of the hard-working billionaires and millionaires who have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize growth and profit at all costs” https://twitter.com/... Jeff Nolan / @jeffnolan : why would anyone take @nickclegg seriously when it comes to a Facebook response to yet another damning expose on the company? https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Nice to see this candor from a reporter who has so closely covered Facebook over the years. She brings the heat. 🙏🏽 https://twitter.com/... Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : In my view, the summary: the WSJ series is accurate. We're not disputing the facts, FB says https://about.fb.com/... Katie Rosman / @katierosman : Not a single citation of a specific error. https://twitter.com/... @blackamazon : This is insultingly transparent and a pattern of abusive disingenuousness that while mocked will never be actually challenged and is why it continues https://twitter.com/... Bill Grueskin / @bgrueskin : This @nickclegg statement is exactly wrong. The WSJ series *doesn't* impugn Facebook's researchers or experts. It impugns — with damning evidence—the willful obstinance of their bosses, and in particular Mark Zuckerberg. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @ravmabay : Facebook caused massive damage to human societies & democracies across the globe. If you're serious @nickclegg, put your money where your mouth is: Kick violent insurrectionists, vaccine deniers, & people who push out mass disinformation that KILLS people off your platform. https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : I'm trying to remember instances of Facebook being held to account that the company's PR admitted were “absolutely legitimate” and drawing a blank. https://twitter.com/... Grady Booch / @grady_booch : @nickclegg @WSJ Furthermore, Nick, it is telling that you then pivot to suggest we are impugning all the good “researchers, experts and engineers”. No, we are calling out Facebook's leadership. @keithmansfield : Nick Clegg happy to take his multimillion dollar salary & shill for Mark Zuckerberg. #Facebook's all about shareholder value & corporate profits. We badly need decentralized social media where, instead of being the product, we each own & control our own data. Via @Miles_Brundage https://twitter.com/... Roger McNamee / @moonalice : .@YaelEisenstat gets this exactly right. Nick Clegg's job is to defend the indefensible. Our job is to ignore him. https://twitter.com/... Nick Clegg / @nickclegg : We will continue to invest in research into these serious and complex issues. We will continue to ask ourselves the hard questions. And we will continue to improve our products and services as a result. https://about.fb.com/... Ali Alkhatib / @_alialkhatib : facebook is determined to falsely convince you that their tremendously opaque organization and algorithmic systems, which they kicked @LauraEdelson2 and others out from studying under fucking bullshit and egregiously disingenuous pretexts, totally has your best interests at heart https://twitter.com/... Zamaan Qureshi / @zamaan_qureshi : Then release the documents yourself. https://twitter.com/... Ed Zitron / @edzitron : Good to hear nick clegg, the paragon of good and clear intentions, on this subject https://twitter.com/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : i agree with this sentence! (From FB's pushback on Wsj series) and it is perhaps unintentionally a statement that makes the best case for allowing researchers outside of the company to access and study data in a way that does not harm consumer privacy https://about.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : “deliberate mischaracterizations” Facebook's top global policy chief and disgraced parliamentarian is tripling down and impugning a significant number of top journalists holding his masters to account by implying motivations. Please don't share his blog post. It's garbage. https://twitter.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : Imagine being Nick Clegg. https://twitter.com/... John Paczkowski / @johnpaczkowski : Speaking of cherry-picking information to present issues as if there is only ever one right answer, what has Facebook been doing for the past decade? “Pretty crazy,” right? https://twitter.com/... @gregbensinger : No dispute from Facebook about the veracity of the documents — so what's “wrong” is the tone, not the substance https://about.fb.com/... David Nemer / @davidnemer : “The company's own research reveals that Instagram harms teens, that it can't control anti-vax misinformation, and that there is a secret double standard for VIPs. In short, the problem with Facebook is Facebook.” @sivavaid https://www.theguardian.com/ ... @somospostpc : I really hope Nick Clegg is getting paid handsomely for these years of having to come back with these empty arguments. Man, what a sad state of affairs if this is the best you have after a robust investigation https://about.fb.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : WSJ has more credibility on Facebook given the track records. But it should release the files it obtained. Best way to refute FB's allegations of cherry picking. https://about.fb.com/... Ian Sherr / @iansherr : How are we to take this seriously? It offers one bewildering datapoint and otherwise comes across as standard PR pearl clutching we've read so many times. Next up: “We're sorry you're upset.” Then maybe another record government settlement without admitting any wrongdoing https://twitter.com/... Bobby Allyn / @bobbyallyn : “The way these documents make it to folks like me is that people have a moral crisis,” says @JeffHorwitz. Really good chat here about the WSJ's revelatory Facebook Files https://twitter.com/... Sean Garrett / @sg : @CaseyNewton Credit Facebook for evolving. Disingenuous apologies have been swapped for disingenuous denials. Andy Stone / @andymstone : “At the heart of this series is an allegation that is just plain false: that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company.” https://about.fb.com/... Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich : these people are so f***ing shameless. @nickclegg dismisses @WSJ reports *Facebook's own research* about how toxic its products as “deliberate mischaracterizations” — and also takes credit for the decline in vaccine hesitancy over the course of 2021. https://twitter.com/... Sami Fathi / @samifathi_ : Oh boy, this should be fun to read. https://twitter.com/... Michael Slaby / @slaby : Facebook's response to @JeffHorwitz work at @WSJ attacking the reporting rather than demonstrating how it's false is a pretty typical political strategy to avoid an argument you know you can't win. https://twitter.com/... Kim Masters / @kimmasters : This thread is a basic introduction to PR weasel words and misdirection, brought to you by Facebook. https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : This response to the WSJ's Facebook Files fulminates about “cherry picking” and then tries to discredit the entire series by citing a single statistic favorable to the company. 🤔 https://about.fb.com/... Dave Lee / @daveleeft : In which Nick Clegg doesn't highlight anything the WSJ got wrong. https://twitter.com/... Sarah Rose Cavanagh / @sarosecav : “A world with Facebook is going to be crueler, stupider, and more deadly than one without Facebook. But it looks like we're stuck with it.” Sigh. by @sivavaid https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
About FacebookNick Clegg
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook’s rebuttal marked an early attempt to frame the Wall Street Journal’s reporting as a problem of interpretation and intent. Related coverage described the series as drawing on Facebook’s own data and research and as its largest crisis since Cambridge Analytica, raising the stakes of that response.
Facebook put its leadership’s motives and its interpretation of internal findings at the center of the public dispute with the Journal, rather than conceding the series’ framing.
The Journal’s reporting became a credibility test for Facebook’s public explanations of how it assesses harms on its services.
Second-order effects
The later whistleblower allegations gained a clearer contrast point: Facebook’s categorical defense now sits alongside claims that its public account of enforcement progress was misleading.
Facebook’s handling of the Instagram reporting made disclosure itself part of the dispute, as critics could focus on research the company cited but did not release.
Third-order effects
If platforms answer reporting based on internal research by contesting motives while limiting underlying data, trust in company-led transparency mechanisms weakens and external scrutiny becomes more consequential.
The episode points toward platform governance debates centered not only on harmful content, but on whether companies’ internal evidence and public assurances can be independently reconciled.
The trend: Platform accountability is increasingly turning on the gap between companies’ internal research, their public narratives, and outsiders’ ability to test both.
As the Wall Street Journal itself makes clear, we have a team of experts who help us uncover patterns of harmful behavior so we can disrupt it. We've got arguably more experts and resources dedicated to this work than any other consumer technology company in the world.
The @WSJ series raises serious & complex issues. It's absolutely legitimate for Facebook to be held to account. But it contains deliberate mischaracterizations of what we are trying to do & confers egregiously false motives to our leadership & employees. https://about.fb.com/...
No @nickclegg, your take (see screenshot) is the opposite of the actual takeaway: the series doesn't impugn hard-working employees who want to make Facebook better. It impugns leadership for repeatedly lying about what FB knows & for business decisions they knew prioritized... 1/…
This company is a blight on humanity. It's rotten through and through. Good people go to work for it and try to reform it and they either get corrupted by the money or chewed up and spat out. It cannot be fixed.
@WSJ Its central allegation is just plain false: that we systematically & willfully ignore research that is inconvenient. This impugns the motives & hard work of the researchers, experts & engineers who strive to improve the quality of our products and understand their wider impa…
Had an awesome conversation with @JeffHorwitz of the WSJ and ex-Facebook executive @brianboland about the Facebook Files. I enjoyed it because we discussed both problems and solutions, and included reporter & tech executive points of view. Check it out: https://open.spotify.com/.…
In my view, it's actually not uncommon for FB researchers working on societal issues to feel ignored, or at least grossly underweighted, in decisions that have public policy or growth tradeoffs. @nickclegg, perhaps you can do an internal 2way Q&A to understand their POV? https://…
It's actually very funny that it took them a week to come up with “how dare you impugn the motives of the hard-working billionaires and millionaires who have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize growth and profit at all costs” https://twitter.com/...
This is insultingly transparent and a pattern of abusive disingenuousness that while mocked will never be actually challenged and is why it continues https://twitter.com/...
@nickclegg @WSJ Furthermore, Nick, it is telling that you then pivot to suggest we are impugning all the good “researchers, experts and engineers”. No, we are calling out Facebook's leadership.
“At the heart of this series is an allegation that is just plain false: that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company.” https://about.fb.com/...
I'm not going to pretend posts like this are easy to write but it remains astounding how consistently Facebook botches crisis comms https://about.fb.com/...
The man in charge of “integrity” at Facebook founded a VPN that FB bought and used to spy on users - including explicitly targeting teenagers - in order to undercut competitors. There's no reforming it. It' just sanctimonious self-justification of immorality through and through.
What a generous, humble, thoughtful response, so willing to take criticism seriously—oh sorry, must have misread every aspect of Facebook's reply to the WSJ, which is defensive, haughty, tone-deaf, and just plain Cleggy. Failing also at damage control. https://about.fb.com/...
It'd be really worrisome if Facebook didn't do this sort of research in the first place. We do it to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask difficult questions about how people interact at scale with social media.
We will continue to invest in research into these serious and complex issues. We will continue to ask ourselves the hard questions. And we will continue to improve our products and services as a result. https://about.fb.com/...
How are we to take this seriously? It offers one bewildering datapoint and otherwise comes across as standard PR pearl clutching we've read so many times. Next up: “We're sorry you're upset.” Then maybe another record government settlement without admitting any wrongdoing https:/…
“deliberate mischaracterizations” Facebook's top global policy chief and disgraced parliamentarian is tripling down and impugning a significant number of top journalists holding his masters to account by implying motivations. Please don't share his blog post. It's garbage. https:…
This @nickclegg statement is exactly wrong. The WSJ series *doesn't* impugn Facebook's researchers or experts. It impugns — with damning evidence—the willful obstinance of their bosses, and in particular Mark Zuckerberg. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
It may be possible to run a social network for 3 billion people in a responsible way, though I doubt it, but there is no doubt that Facebook cannot and will not do it. The people in charge of this company are unfit. Mitigating harms until it can be dismantled has to be the goal.
Speaking of cherry-picking information to present issues as if there is only ever one right answer, what has Facebook been doing for the past decade? “Pretty crazy,” right? https://twitter.com/...
WSJ has more credibility on Facebook given the track records. But it should release the files it obtained. Best way to refute FB's allegations of cherry picking. https://about.fb.com/...
facebook is determined to falsely convince you that their tremendously opaque organization and algorithmic systems, which they kicked @LauraEdelson2 and others out from studying under fucking bullshit and egregiously disingenuous pretexts, totally has your best interests at heart…
i agree with this sentence! (From FB's pushback on Wsj series) and it is perhaps unintentionally a statement that makes the best case for allowing researchers outside of the company to access and study data in a way that does not harm consumer privacy https://about.fb.com/... htt…
Facebook's response to @JeffHorwitz work at @WSJ attacking the reporting rather than demonstrating how it's false is a pretty typical political strategy to avoid an argument you know you can't win. https://twitter.com/...
I'm trying to remember instances of Facebook being held to account that the company's PR admitted were “absolutely legitimate” and drawing a blank. https://twitter.com/...
these people are so f***ing shameless. @nickclegg dismisses @WSJ reports *Facebook's own research* about how toxic its products as “deliberate mischaracterizations” — and also takes credit for the decline in vaccine hesitancy over the course of 2021. https://twitter.com/...
“The way these documents make it to folks like me is that people have a moral crisis,” says @JeffHorwitz. Really good chat here about the WSJ's revelatory Facebook Files https://twitter.com/...
We understand the responsibility that comes with operating a global platform. We take it seriously, and we don't shy away from scrutiny and criticism. But we fundamentally reject this mischaracterization of our work and motives.
This response to the WSJ's Facebook Files fulminates about “cherry picking” and then tries to discredit the entire series by citing a single statistic favorable to the company. 🤔 https://about.fb.com/...
This Facebook statement huffs and puffs about “mischaracterizations” and “lop-sided views” but what it lacks is a refutation of any specific facts reported by WSJ. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook caused massive damage to human societies & democracies across the globe. If you're serious @nickclegg, put your money where your mouth is: Kick violent insurrectionists, vaccine deniers, & people who push out mass disinformation that KILLS people off your platform. https…
“The company's own research reveals that Instagram harms teens, that it can't control anti-vax misinformation, and that there is a secret double standard for VIPs. In short, the problem with Facebook is Facebook.” @sivavaid https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Nick Clegg happy to take his multimillion dollar salary & shill for Mark Zuckerberg. #Facebook's all about shareholder value & corporate profits. We badly need decentralized social media where, instead of being the product, we each own & control our own data. Via @Miles_Brundage …
I really hope Nick Clegg is getting paid handsomely for these years of having to come back with these empty arguments. Man, what a sad state of affairs if this is the best you have after a robust investigation https://about.fb.com/...
“A world with Facebook is going to be crueler, stupider, and more deadly than one without Facebook. But it looks like we're stuck with it.” Sigh. by @sivavaid https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
actually i think that this largely misses the point and reinforces a false narrative. the problem is that it's actually genuinely impossible to effectively make those decisions about what is “good” & “bad” at the scale of billions of pieces of content in dozens of languages, etc …
Instead of trying to address the proliferation of false and divisive content on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg continues to look the other way. No company should be too big to be held accountable for spreading misinformation, toxicity, and violent content. https://www.wsj.com/...
Facebook is a trash company, with garbage morals and principles - it needs to be dismantled and its rotten corpse fed to the vultures. We knew Facebook was a trash fire, but the new Facebook Files reporting from the WSJ show that it is explosive shit on fire. https://twitter.com/…
@ScheckWSJ ... I just can't say enough good things about this series. All of you are doing amazing work. This reads like a dystopian novel. Facebook implants platforms in countries without any concern for the collateral damage, and no infrastructure to prevent it.
Some @Facebook folks have told me we should pay more attention to how the interplay between social media and cable TV news affected the public discussion of Covid vaccines, including on the company's platforms. It's not something that belonged in this story, but they're right.
A fascinating nugget from the outstanding Facebook series, which goes to the question of whether people are persuaded by the prevalence of bad information, or turned off by it. Facebook's desperate attempts to goose engagement suggest, to me, the latter https://www.wsj.com/... ht…
Lots of good stuff here, but IMO the framing gets way ahead of the evidence. So pro-vaccine posts get flooded with anti-vaxx comments. But is there any reason to think FB comments heavily affect people's beliefs? Let alone enough to “hobble” FB's effort? https://www.wsj.com/...
The more I read The Facebook files the more horrified I get at what's going on there. Makes me wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg floating on the surface and what's underneath
This WSJ series is a great reminder that if you work for a company that is sitting on information that you are convinced the world deserves to know, you are not helpless. You can contact a journalist you trust—ideally via secure channels—about making that information known.
Just want to be the 3 millionth person to applaud the WSJ's investigative “Facebook Files” series: https://www.wsj.com/... And join maybe a smaller number in thanking the whistleblowers at FB who took serious personal risks to expose critical findings that their bosses wouldn't.
“In the weeks before Mr. Zuckerberg made his announcement, another memo said initial testing concluded that roughly 41% of comments on English-language vaccine-related posts risked discouraging vaccinations.” https://www.wsj.com/...
The @WSJ saved the most damning part of their series, about how Zuckerberg wanted to provide reliable vaccine information but lost control of his own creation, for last. https://www.wsj.com/...
This is not unique to the WSJ, but part of a dismaying industry standard in journalism. For example, the New York Times ran a flagship series on privacy, complete with earnest editorial calling for regulation, that was stuffed with ad trackers. https://twitter.com/...
The Wall Street Journal's “Facebook Files” has been widely lauded. But every article in the series also contains Facebook tracking scripts, and this clear conflict of interest (along with the WSJ's financial relationship with Facebook) is never mentioned. https://t.co/pOpKENLv7v
Somehow reading the @wsj story about Facebook vindicates what been writing/saying for almost a decade. It feels me sadder because we are now permanently caught in this vortex of misinformation, lies & mental pollination. Even they don't know how to stop the monster they unleashed
Even authoritative sources of vaccine information were becoming “cesspools of anti-vaccine comments,” the authors wrote. “That's a huge problem and we need to fix it,” they said. https://www.wsj.com/...
But to say the main reason you can't act on your own researchers' recs is bc they're proposing interventions w implications “worse than the proposed fix” ? like they & their eng/prod/ds/des teammates didn't already put in legwork to think things through?? 🙅♀️ https://twitter.com…
Sorry, FBs own statement does far more to impugn the hard work of FB integrity researchers than the WSJ. Sure there's a lot frustrating abt the series- doesn't spend time on the wins or on hard work done after the research, collabing with XFN to propose & craft interventions... h…
I. am. fucking. livid. all product work gets evaluated for risk: failure, bad PR, liability, harm, etc. but integrity product work - which focuses on reducing the chance or severity of the “harm” part of those risks - gets held to such an absurdly higher standard. https://twitter…
This thread by @pinboard does a good job of laying out the issues. The internet helps people find a global community and not every community is good. Some of these not good ones are also quite large (46% of Americans voters voted for Trump in 2020). You can't censor them all. htt…
There's a belief perpetrated by the media that if social media companies just censored or moderated enough content then people wouldn't be antivax or Jan 6th wouldn't have happened. This is contradicted by everything we know about human history & behavior https://twitter.com/... …
Part of the answer lies in a radical distrust of existing institutions, which if not born in 2008 certainly crystallized then. Another part of the answer has to do with how social media gives every subculture global reach. Another is in the architecture of persuasion and virality
I've now heard from a number of current/former FB researchers who are deeply offended, not by the WSJ's reporting, but FB's official statement via Clegg. https://twitter.com/...
For people who don't know my work, I've been beating on Facebook like a piñata ever since I was on MySpace. it brings me comfort and happiness. But I also think we need to find a way to step out of the social media thunderdome and find a way to understand and fix this dynamic.
As people like @alexstamos have rightly pointed out, this whole cauldron of outrage creates powerful disincentives for the social media giants—the only ones who have the data—to study what is going on. You don't have to worry about subpoenas for research you never conducted.
“We need to talk about Facebook research.” A good, short commentary on FB Research—the Faustian and on-balance unethical pact that its researchers make, knowing their research will be subordinated to, or put in service of, clicks and profit—by @StevenLevy https://link.wired.com/.…
Good - they should walk out the door. Clegg pretty clearly was hired to protect Sandberg and Zuckerberg as much as Facebook Inc. His post demonstrates this. Also disappointed in this anonymous poll appearing to show 2/3 of employees don't care or don't even know about it. https:/…
“I got to the point where I was concerned about polarization on the platform, just racial polarization, around George Floyd and last summer, and continuing to see the lack of effort to understand different categories of polarization, that was enough for me...” -@brianboland https…
Most of these are questions of human nature—we are a social species whose biology and culture is set up for life in small and gossipy local groups. Taking the “local” and “small” out of that equation has been a great social experiment enabled by the internet. It's not going well
I think making Facebook the villain, while always fun, takes us past the foundational problem here. Why people are so ready to be radicalized, including into some nonsensical directions like flat earthism, is a bigger question than can fit into a scheme of heroes and villains. ht…
@axios @mikeallen How about trying not to be the world's most powerful platform for propaganda, disinformation and psychological manipulation? Hope the money keeps you warm at night @nickclegg.
@nickclegg @WSJ Facebook does not systematically and willfully ignore research because it is inconvenient. Facebook systematically and willfully ignores research because it impacts profit.
@MSNBC @grudging1 I'm related to a few of the people that FB radicalized into QAnon. A couple of them went to the insurrection. It's a straight through-line, & I'm frustrated that Congress isn't holding FB/social media more accountable.
I don't know this person and I don't work for the Journal but this response is just an embarrassment. I get that your job is PR but how far does this company have to fall before it realizes the image isn't the problem? https://twitter.com/...
honestly the outraged cant is sort of funny in a hideous way. “Facebook censors dissidents, broadcasts snuff videos for cartel recruitment, and sells slaves” “...uh, how DARE you impugn the purity of our motives just because we happen to be very rich!” https://twitter.com/...
the result - whether FB leadership intends it or not - is that integrity experts and their work are CONSTANTLY undermined and the integrity efforts that succeed and thrive tend to be the ones that reduce liability / PR risk vs the ones that will do the best job at harm reduction
No, @andymstone, I wouldn't rather Facebook didn't do this research. But it is a betrayal to both Facebook's users and to the many employees who did this research to disregard the clear findings of harm to users. And that falls squarely on upper management. Who. knew.
I and many other researchers have spent years of our lives trying to understand if the harms people were experiencing on Facebook were anecdotal or systemic. We learned this week that Facebook researchers were far, far ahead of us. The harms are systemic. And they knew.
...profit over the public good. In fact, here is a much more accurate depiction of the key takeaway of @JeffHorwitz's @WSJ series (from @CraigSilverman) and a quick added take from my own experience working at FB: 2/ https://twitter.com/...
No, Facebookers systemically and willfully avoid asking a single question: Should our product even exist because it's so destructive to the social order? It's the question no employee can ask. And the answer is a resounding No. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook has lost the right for anyone to assume they are acting in good faith. Upper management acted recklessly with their users' mental and even their physical safety. It's time for legislation. @SenAmyKlobuchar, @ChrisCoons, @MarkWarner are thinking about this, I know.
There's an easy way to combat the @WSJ reports @nickclegg Open up @Facebook research. @nyuniversity scientist have some good ideas on how to do that. https://about.fb.com/...
It's wild to me that people are constantly writing “Facebook VP of global affairs Nick Clegg” stories without even mentioning that Clegg was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as recently as 2015. Imagine if it was America's #2 leader from 2015, [checks notes] Joe Biden …
This thread from @NickClegg is disappointing. He suggests @WSJ is attacking Facebook staff - nonsense. Facebook staff were producing this data to warn leadership - it leaked because they were ignored. The problem is greedy, indifferent, immoral leadership. https://twitter.com/...
I think the most significant omission from this statement is any challenge to the WSJs reporting on Facebook and the Global South https://about.fb.com/...
At least some of the public vitriol against Facebook stems from something this PR response still seems not to understand — or at least fails to mention. Facebook lives on user transparency, but the company, itself, seems disdainful of transparency. https://about.fb.com/...
This is very true. It makes me really sad when folks that I appreciate and admire end up going to Facebook. They may have their reasons no doubt, but it's still very disappointing. https://twitter.com/...
This is a really good discussion, especially @brianboland's thoughts on how measurement/comp models need to change for Facebook to address these issues. https://twitter.com/...
@Facebook has taken courses from @GoogleAI in gaslighting it seems. @WSJ is hardly the first to document the wide-spread, sanctioned, and systematic abuse of moderation powers at Facebook, but it seems there's always a deeper rabbithole. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.co…
In many countries like Ethiopia (an example Stone cites) Facebook is THE INTERNET, so saying it has more resources than other companies means nothing. Until recently FB had no staff in Ethiopia & it's community standards weren't available in the country's two main languages https…