An Ugly Truth

“Yeah, I read An Ugly Truth, that biography of Facebook. I forget the name of the author. Sheriff Franklin. Yes, Celia King. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. So I read that. And that covers that in great detail.”

“And it's very apparent, um, through the book, I think that it's worth going through these questions because, um, yeah, I, I think it's a topic of discussion.”

“There was, in fact, I think you put it, um, out there in the book, this, uh, question that got voted up to like the top of the list of questions for Mark saying like, um, Mark Zuckerberg saying, what can Facebook do to stop a Trump election in 2016?”

“Obviously the Myanmar situation was, was awful, remains awful. Also really important section of your book. So I encourage everyone to go out and get it.”

“Like, there's no way that the Facebook feed can be held to the same standard as, you know, what's written down in an ugly truth or on the pages of the New York times.”

“You had an interesting story in the book about Nancy Pelosi. There was that slowed down video of her that made her look like she was drunk while she was making a speech and she got, uh, she had been an ally of Facebook and Congress and then got angry about, uh, what happened”

“And I think one of the most disturbing parts of the whole book was this guy who had alerted them about what was going to happen in Myanmar. And they just were flat footed until it was too late.”

“You even have a point in the book where, um, someone points out one of the Facebook engineers points out the type of content that it takes to get people that engaged and, and asks, is this really what we want to show?”

“Shira, thank you so much for coming on. Always great to talk to you about these things. And, uh, I did enjoy the book. It was a really good read and I appreciate you, uh, you know, talking through some of the subject matter here”

“she's a new york times tech reporter and one of the authors of an ugly truth inside facebook's battle for domination shira franco thank you so much for being here”

“um is that they think they do more good than bad and if they have to break a few eggs along the way i think they really believe that connecting the world is a valiant and and uh important”

“everybody should read an ugly truth it is a great read and i found really helpful to understanding this incredibly important powerful company that seems unwilling to recognize how important and powerful it really is”

“There was a version of this book that was twice as long and we had an early chapter. I still remember writing it where we looked at the Obama campaign and how they used Facebook.”

“I've seen a lot of tweets from people that are right leaning, you know, probably, you know, admittedly, I think they say in their bios that they're Republican Trump supporters who've tweeted about the book and have been excited about it.”

“But, you know, yeah, I can tell you very honestly that not a single person who spoke to us for the book did so because they were, you know, a Democrat voting American who was angry about Trump winning.”

“You know, I think our book shows that again and again, they're warned that this kind of stuff is coming. So yes, Facebook's PR line will often be that they couldn't anticipate it.”

“I remember reporting on white paper that Facebook released in March of 2017. And I had heard from a couple sources that the paper originally had a Russia section and that it was omitted at the request of executives.”

“But I think I was surprised at how aggressive they were in trying to find leakers and not to get too meta, but definitely in reaction to this book, I know that they've tried very, very hard to find our sources, have not found any yet.”

“I think why it's important for people to understand what that term is and in general, what we hope people take out of our book is what makes Facebook work as a business, right?”

“Um, well, I'll say that, you know, the last chapter of our book does cover Facebook in the 2020 elections and everything that was important about it, which was that they ultimately solved the problems of 2016 in terms of foreign election experience, but didn't solve the problem of peer to peer misinformation.”

“Shir Frankle and Cecilia Kang join us to talk about their new book an Ugly Truth”

“my colleagues Shir Frankle and Cecilia Kong both join us now their new book is called an ugly truth inside Facebook's battle for Domination”

“it's on the back of your book actually your book cover these alternating statements from Mark Zuckerberg and from Cheryl Sandberg”

“there's a line in um there's a line in the um cecilia carrying cheryl frankel book of i think it's a quote from kara swisher about it basically is like something to the effect”