Show an ad over header. AMP

I am the FIRST!!!

Forthcoming book, "An Ugly Truth": How Facebook discovered Russian meddling

"Oh f---, how did we miss this?" Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked, looking around at the somber faces of his top executives, the N.Y. Times' Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write in their book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination," out Tuesday.

In an excerpt provided first to Axios, the authors write that the executives met Dec. 9, 2016, for a briefing on what Facebook's security team knew about Russian meddling on the platform during the election won by Donald Trump.


The security team, it turns out, had first spotted Russian activity on the platform in March 2016. But Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg were just being told about it nine months later.

  • The eight-page handout for the meeting — written by Alex Stamos, then Facebook's chief security officer — "acknowledged that Facebook was sitting on a trove of information proving that a foreign government had tried to meddle in the U.S. election."

Frenkel and Kang, in a chapter called "Company Over Country," write that "no one else spoke as Zuckerberg and Sandberg drilled their chief security officer":

Why had they been kept in the dark? How aggressive were the Russians? And why, asked a visibly agitated Sandberg, had she not known that Stamos had put together a special team to look at Russian election interference? Did they need to share what Stamos had found with lawmakers immediately, and did the company have a legal obligation beyond that?

What happened: The security team "had uncovered information that no one, including the U.S. government, had previously known," the authors write.

  • "Stamos felt that he had been trying to sound the alarm on Russia for months."
  • Stamos said: "It was well within my remit to investigate foreign activity within the platform. And we had appropriately briefed the people in our reporting chain ... It became clear after that that it wasn’t enough."

At the meeting, "Stamos gave a somber assessment of where they stood, admitting that no one at the company knew the full extent of the Russian election interference," we learn from "An Ugly Truth."

  • "Zuckerberg demanded that the executives get him answers, so they promised to devote their top engineering talent and resources to investigate what Russia had done on the platform."

Facebook spokesperson Dani Lever said in a previous statement to Axios about the book:

  • "There’s no silver bullet to fighting misinformation and disinformation, which is why we take a comprehensive approach which includes removing fake accounts and coordinated networks, connecting people to reliable information, and running an historic, independent fact-checking program." 

Go deeper: Read a N.Y. Times adaptation (subscription).

regular 4 post ff

infinite scroll 4 pff

Biden issues executive order that requires new steps on climate-related financial risk

President Biden issued an executive order Thursday that directs agencies government-wide to launch or expand efforts to analyze and lessen economic risks stemming from climate change.

Why it matters: The move signals growing concerns that the government lacks sophisticated understanding of how global warming creates new or growing jeopardy for financial and government institutions, consumers and other parties.

Keep reading...Show less

U.S. ships first 2 million Pfizer COVID vaccine doses to Peru

The U.S. will begin shipping its first doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine abroad Monday, CNN reports.

Why it matters: The first of 2 million Pfizer vaccine doses will be shipped to Peru directly from the U.S., per CNN. Biden has pledged to share 80 million doses of the U.S. vaccine supply with the world.

Keep reading...Show less

The world's population growth is slowing, and that's OK

Population growth is continuing to slow in the U.S. and China — the world’s top two economies — but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Why it matters: While population trends can be difficult to change, there is unlikely to be a “point of no return" where they can't be reversed — if government leaders proactively address the foundational causes, like the burdens and costs of child care or fears of immigration.

Keep reading...Show less

Biden: U.S. military mission in Afghanistan will end Aug. 31

The United States' military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on Aug. 31, President Biden announced Thursday during an update on the withdrawal from Afghanistan amid increasing instability and violence in the country.

Why it matters: Biden said his administration will start finding and transporting Afghan nationals who helped U.S. forces during the Afghanistan War to host countries while they wait for U.S. visas this month.

Keep reading...Show less

Insights

mail-copy

Get Goodhumans in your inbox

Most Read

More Stories