Facebook’s Dirty Deeds Exposed

FEATURING RAMESH SRINIVASAN – The New York Times recently published a major exposé of the inner workings of social media company Facebook over the past several years. The investigative piece revealed that Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg and founder Mark Zuckerberg made major missteps in the years after the 2016 election revealed that its user data had been misused.

According to the Times, “Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.”

Even worse, “Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros.” The report was based on interviews with more than 50 people. Groups like Color of Change which were among those targeted denounced the social media platform’s actions as, “reprehensible,” and “dangerous,” and said that Facebook “should be ashamed.”

Ramesh Srinivasan, Director of the Digital Cultures Lab and Associate Professor of Information Studies and Design and Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of Whose Global Village? Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World. His new book, co-authored with Adam Fish is called After the Internet.