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We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public. Here’s Why and How


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A representation of the Facebook Papers.

At its best, Facebook is a tool that connects billions, narrowing the divide between disparate peoples and cultures in ways previously unimaginable. At its worst, it has served as historys most efficient delivery system for toxic propaganda, empowering b

Credit: Elena Scotti/Shutterstock

"The internet not only connects us to our friends, families and communities, but it is also the foundation of the global knowledge economy." - Mark Zuckerberg, Aug. 21, 2013.

"Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where, for most users, Facebook is the Internet." - United Nations Human Rights Council, Sept. 12, 2018.


In one of Silicon Valley's largest leaks, a former Facebook product manager slipped financial regulators stacks of documents containing thousands of confidential memos, chat logs, and a veritable library of hidden research. The leak was designed to convince the feds that the gravity and scope of Facebook's design flaws and misdeeds vastly exceed anything its executives ever divulged to their investors.

The documents, captured by whistleblower Frances Haugen and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were also handed to members of a Senate Commerce subcommittee chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut who last month called Instagram "a breeding ground for eating disorders and self harm." And it's from here that Gizmodo and some 300 other mostly Western journalists derived their access.

From Gizmodo
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