Internal messages, documents, and a Zuckerberg Q&A show Facebook's attempts to calm staff, including sending out talking points and holding briefing sessions
“good! Bad! So-so!” — and how company execs are attempting to contain it https://www.nytimes.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : This is Facebook comms sending a message to employees saying disparaging the whistleblower is “not who we are as a company” knowing full-well Facebook comms itself has been attacking the whistleblower. Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Hypocrites for the ages. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Yael Eisenstat / @yaeleisenstat : @RMac18 @FrancesHaugen “Disparaging her personally is not right, it's not allowed, and it's not who we are as a company,” Ms. Saul wrote. Did Andy Stone get that memo? 🤣 Tristan Snell / @tristansnell : Was part of the Trump-Zuckerberg secret bargain that Facebook would turn a blind eye to “Stop the Steal” and the planning of January 6? Evan Greer / @evan_greer : This this this this It's hard (not impossible) to regulate algorithms themselves and even harder (probably impossible) to regulate the underlying speech without doing more harm than good But Congress can & should ban the surveillance practices that are the source of FB's power https://twitter.com/... Stella Parton / @stellaparton : @MollyJongFast @FrancesHaugen She will be happy she spoke out in the future. regardless of how Facebook is trying to discredit her. Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : You know Facebook is freaked which sort of proves @FrancesHaugen is telling the truth https://twitter.com/... Mehdi Hasan / @mehdirhasan : Nick Clegg went from providing cover for David Cameron to providing cover for Mark Zuckerberg and he was amply rewarded for both. https://twitter.com/... Rep. Ken Buck / @repkenbuck : My suggestion is that Congress passes antitrust reform to actually hold Facebook accountable. https://twitter.com/... Chillian J. Yikes / @jilliancyork : Excellent piece from @daphnek @jkosseff. I'd add that Haugen's policy recommendations center the US far too much, which is simply misguided in an era in which Americans are a minority on these platforms. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Dave Winer / @davewiner : You know why I prefer Facebook over journalism? At least I, as a human being, have a role in Facebook. Sure I'm just one of 2.7 billion, but at least I'm one. When it comes to journalism, I'm zero.
New York Times
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook’s employee-management effort arrives after Zuckerberg publicly rejected key claims by Frances Haugen in an earlier defense of Facebook’s safety record. It also revives a longer-running internal problem: employees had previously warned that the company was hurting people at scale.
The reported talking points and briefing sessions matter because Facebook’s internal message asks employees not to disparage Haugen while its communications operation was reportedly attacking her.
First-order effects
Facebook employees are given centrally prepared messaging and briefing sessions as the company tries to contain staff concern around Haugen’s allegations.
The gap between the instruction not to attack Haugen personally and the reported external communications strategy puts Facebook’s communications leadership under immediate credibility pressure with employees.
Second-order effects
Existing employee dissent becomes harder for Facebook to contain when internal guidance conflicts with the company’s public posture toward the whistleblower.
Zuckerberg’s public rebuttal becomes part of an internal-management campaign rather than a standalone response, tying executive credibility to whether staff accept the company’s account.
Third-order effects
The recurrence of internal dissent—from the earlier employee warnings through the Haugen controversy—points to employee trust becoming a persistent operational constraint during Facebook crises.
If crisis responses continue to require internal message discipline alongside public rebuttals, Facebook’s ability to retain a coherent internal culture will increasingly depend on alignment between those two audiences.
The trend: Facebook’s whistleblower response is part of a broader pattern in which platform-company crises are managed simultaneously as public-policy disputes and employee-trust challenges.
Publicly, Facebook's execs have tried to undermine the credibility of whistle-blower @FrancesHaugen. But internally, the company is in full crisis management mode, distributing talking points & holding informational meetings to calm employees. Our latest: https://www.nytimes.com/…
Thanksgiving is soon: Company officials have also provided information on how employees should respond when they are “asked questions about recent events by friends and family,” according to one memo. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Facebook employees recount a week of turmoil. “It reinforced the feeling, you can't win no matter what you do. They hate us, but hate us when we're gone.” https://www.businessinsider.com/ ... via @businessinsider @robaeprice @HaysKali @MeghanEMorris
In addition to the blatant sexism here, it's worth noting that it's common for opponents of reform to cite their adversaries' purported lack of technical expertise (e.g. gun control debate). https://twitter.com/...
Oh you think you're qualified to consider the ethical impacts of the platform we build? Tell me how a tokenizer works. (This is so many levels of nonsense I can't. And perhaps consider that it's the insistence of focusing only on low level code that got us into this situation) ht…
Standard whistleblower treatment. Attempts to discredit the messenger. Their characters impugned and maligned. Their expertise and experiences questioned. Sounds a lot like the treatment of women who report rape. “She didn't say no” https://twitter.com/...
This Facebook engineer doesn't know how basic ethics works. His quote should be stricken from this article. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Technocrats have, for a very very long time, used arbitrary tests of technical knowledge as a way to discredit anybody from commenting on, let alone challenging, technology. Funny how it never goes the other way. They revel in their naivety about history, politics, society, etc. …
i bet someone's written about this intersection of misogyny & engineering (bro) culture that fixates on the pettiest, most inconsequential technical pebbles they can latch onto & use to categorically dismiss women and particularly women of color when they critique these systems. …
here's a new story from me, @RMac18 and @sheeraf on the decidedly mixed feelings about whistleblower Frances Haugen inside of Facebook — “good! Bad! So-so!” — and how company execs are attempting to contain it https://www.nytimes.com/...
This is Facebook comms sending a message to employees saying disparaging the whistleblower is “not who we are as a company” knowing full-well Facebook comms itself has been attacking the whistleblower.
@RMac18 @FrancesHaugen “Disparaging her personally is not right, it's not allowed, and it's not who we are as a company,” Ms. Saul wrote. Did Andy Stone get that memo? 🤣