Original subtitles

Looks like you're overheated.

Say again?

Your car's overheated.

I called AAA.

It's fine.

Probably just needs water.

For insurance reasons, I can't try to fix your car.

You live nearby?

I called AAA.

You can, you know.

Thank you.

The tow truck's on its way?

Yeah, I just got here.

I said that many times.

Ma'am.

I asked the same question.

Are you alright?

I am fine.

That tow truck?

You can go.

Thank you.

She's a signal woman.

I can smell it.

You want to use the clipboard?

There's no shame in using the clipboard.

Last time you indicated there was quite a bit of shame in using the clipboard.

Yeah.

So you want me to get the clipboard for you?

Ma'am.

I'm Deputy Timbo of the San Mateo Sheriff's Department.

And this is Deputy Diaz.

And I need to tell you that this conversation is being recorded on video.

And I hear because what?

Do you have any identification?

Not in California.

I don't understand.

Not in California.

No.

You said you don't have identification in California.

That's not what I said.

Let's start over.

Do you have any ID?

In California, you are not required to be in California.

to the police under these exact circumstances.

Ma'am, what's your name?

Yeah.

She knows I'm right.

Kaylee?

Kaylee, I'm detecting the odor of alcohol.

And combined with your erratic behavior, I want to ask if you'd be willing to perform some

standardized field sobriety tests to alleviate my concern that you might be too impaired to drive.

You need to listen to him.

Would you mind putting away your phone, please?

Do you see me driving anything?

Why do I need to take your test?

You're not driving this moment.

But you drove to this spot from wherever you were.

My boyfriend is driving.

Where's your boyfriend?

He is driving.

When?

Just a few minutes ago.

Your boyfriend was driving the car.

He pulled over because it overheated.

You called AAA.

And then he got out and walked away.

Yes.

And AAA is, you know, they're, that's it.

Thank you.

I need a yes or no answer.

Are you willing to take some standardized field sobriety tests?

I wasn't driving.

I am not driving now.

I don't have the keys.

The keys are in the cup holder.

I am not in control of the alcohol.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next exit is seven miles away.

There was no boyfriend.

She knows that she's done.

I arrest her.

She's going to get tossed.

All right, Kaylee.

I'm going to let you slide and stick around until the tow truck gets here.

You're not letting me slide.

We are.

You're not letting me slide.

You just don't have enough to do anything about it.

It's your lucky night.

You're not letting me slide.

Fine.

I'm just saying, you're not letting me slide.

Why are you arguing about this?

I'm just saying, you're not letting me slide.

I don't know if this is a black-white thing going

on, because you guys like to play that card.

What are you talking about?

Pull over a white girl.

We didn't pull you over.

You see a white girl in this dress.

You see a hot white girl.

All this one ever wanted to be is white.

Look at her.

Ma'am, can you do me a favor and not talk like that in front of me?

I have had free speech.

You do, but I'm asking you not to use it.

I'm just saying.

You don't know me.

You don't know my background.

It's disrespectful.

First of all, I wasn't even talking to you.

I don't care.

You're talking to my partner.

This is disrespectful.

This is disrespectful, and I want to talk to your supervisor.

I'm the supervisor.

Oh, of course you are.

You know what?

I am getting this all on video.

Our body cams have been on since the moment we made contact.

So, she is getting all in my face.

She's coming at me.

Haley, let's take it easy.

No.

Why was she getting in my face like that?

She wasn't.

No.

Why was she getting in my face like that?

Take it easy.

Don't disrespect me.

She's not.

No.

Why is she getting in my face like that?

You don't know what I've been through, bitch?

You don't know what the fuck I've been through.

Cops are literally being assholes to me because I'm white.

This guy's name is Atombo, swear to God.

And this ghetto bitch, I don't know.

She's Spanish or some shit.

Maybe he's fucking her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny how you stop talking.

It's funny.

You're all in my face.

And now you're quiet.

You're like a stupid fucking immigrant.

I'm stopped from being American in America.

You're stuck because you're far over-eating.

You don't let me slide.

You don't let me do shit.

I swear, I'm going to swear to Christ.

You can't threaten an L.E.O. No.

Why was she getting in my face like that?

It's a felony, Haley.

You can't do it.

I am so fucking mad.

You can't take it easy.

Could I swear?

You can't take it easy.

I'm going to kill this bitch.

You're under arrest.

Wait.

For what?

Wait a minute.

For what?

I'm under arrest.

For being toxic and threatening bodily harm to other people.

Get off of me.

And resisting arrest.

Where's my phone?

I want my phone.

Jesus.

And now you're quiet.

And Tom said you were late because you just flew in this morning, rented a car at the

airport, and had trouble finding the building, as you're not familiar with the Bay Area.

Yes.

So here's my question.

The rental car didn't have GPS?

It did.

But you didn't use it?

Yes.

No, I didn't.

Go ahead.

Just tell her.

I didn't know how to.

That's what I goddamn thought.

This particular kind of GPS.

Apple Maps, Google Maps.

Waze.

Well, I should really...

Learn how to use one of them.

I was going to say get a map.

But, sure.

No way.

We knew he wasn't a tech expert, Chris.

He couldn't find the Wall Street Journal, Andy.

Because he couldn't operate the navigation system in a Ford Fiesta.

I'm not asking for Thomas Edison.

Her concern, if I can interpret, is that it's Facebook.

Jeff DeBeat is covering Facebook.

It's a tech company?

Sure.

Sure, absolutely.

But not really.

Do you have an interest in social media?

Not even a little bit.

Look, I'm an investigative reporter covering politics.

Right?

And something happened.

Something happened because that guy and this company are

playing a strange, outsized, unprecedented role in our lives.

That's why I'm here.

Something happened.

Right?

It's not a tech beat, Christina.

It's a political beat.

I'm an investigator.

Somebody else can write about Oculus.

Connectivity.

I will learn the tech that I need to learn.

No problem.

Same for not being familiar with the Bay Area.

Okay.

Uh, the circumstances...

How long do you think it'll take?

Sorry?

You said you'll need to learn the tech.

How long do you think that will take?

It's hard to say.

90 days.

Copy that.

If you want him, you got him.

Thank you.

By the way, I tried friending you on Facebook.

I'm not on Facebook.

What the hell, Andy?

Jeff, I'll sign up right now.

Do you need someone to help you?

I'm good.

Okay.

You just put in your destination.

The GPS.

You just type it in.

There's not a lot of people out there.

Yeah, you and me, we got in the game for the last two minutes of print journalism.

A few goodbyes.

Journalists are megalomaniac dressed up as righteousness.

They seek to exploit the, let's call it, credulousness often found in genuinely

good people, using their considerable talents to make the world a better place.

We're getting reports, if you can believe this, we're getting reports

of journalists posing as Facebook employees, waiting at our bus stops.

But I have a better one.

Reporters are going on Tinder and, yeah, they're

pretending to, they're, I'm trying to date us.

They won't hook up.

My team knows about these things because you

report them and you need to keep doing that.

The way we're able to be completely transparent internally is

by trusting that we're all completely confidential externally.

Which brings me to my last item before we get to questions.

This fellow, Jeff Horwitz, this is the journal's new Facebook detective.

We maintain excellent relations with the tech press and

that's reflected in the coverage we get from the Valley.

But Jeff's coming to us from D.C. where he covered politics.

He's an investigative reporter.

So he's not, he's not looking for trouble.

He's hunting for it.

He doesn't find trouble.

He doesn't eat.

So let us know if he or anyone else are

showing up at bus stops or near DMs. All right.

Questions for anyone on stage?

My name is Frances Haugen.

I've been on the Civic Integrity.

Hold on.

Frances.

Sorry, Frances.

I'm being told I cut into question time.

You'll be first to the next team.

I'm dancing right now.

I knew as soon as you were unable to ask your

question at the town hall that I was next.

How can I help you?

Seriously?

I've spent the last 41 hours running classifiers on political groups.

Groups that Captain Cheek got out.

Facebook groups.

I understand.

I've defined the parameters rigorously.

Groups where 30% of content hits multiple risk factors.

Demonstrably false narratives.

Inflammatory partisan content.

Can I ask, sorry, how many index cards are there?

Six.

Six?

Yeah.

Both sides.

I ran a classifier on 252 political groups.

I'll ask you the question.

I'm supposed to be working on third-party fact-checker

integration, and for that matter, so are you.

Let's set that aside for a moment.

Bearing in mind that I'm pretty far behind, I have a performance review

in four days, and a quarter of a million dollars in student loan debt.

How important is this presentation you're giving me right now?

I think there's an argument to be made that it's very important.

Okay.

Could you make that argument to someone else?

You're closest to me.

We hardly know each other.

No, you meant you should have grasped it right in front of me.

Yeah.

I have to draw a line.

There it is.

We got it right there.

Great.

Hello.

Can I talk to you for a moment?

Sure.

Have you tried that dating site you're here to thank?

Shit.

I've been running classifiers on political groups

where 30% of content hits multiple risk factors.

Just stop.

I'm going to lower my voice because I want to give you some advice.

You're getting a reputation as a Cassandra.

Know who Cassandra was?

Yes.

She cried wolf one too many times.

That's not who Cassandra was.

That's the boy who cried wolf.

Whatever.

The sky is always falling down.

That's Chicken Little.

Cassandra was a priestess in Greek mythology.

Apollo was in love with her, so he gave her the power to see the future.

But when his love was unrequited, he added a curse that no one would believe her.

It's the exact opposite of the boy who cried wolf.

Civic integrity is in the middle of a sprint, and I can't

have you stopping to do your own thing for a couple of days.

Whatever this is, bring it up in the next team meeting.

Okay.

Whatever it is, do not put it in writing.

Yeah.

And check out that dating site.

I think you benefit from listening up.

Work faster?

I can work faster.

I didn't have to keep making notes for HR about emotional abuse.

Everyone likes a wise, cracking intern.

Don't ever forget that.

Finished.

What'd you get?

388 to 12.

You.

Hang on.

I'm counting.

Counting can be hard.

Dear Harassment Diary.

Finished.

388 to 12.

Me too.

I'm on my way home.

MZ gave a speech at Georgetown recently, which was broadcast on Facebook.

It received close to 45,000 comments, 400 of which were posted in real time.

Of those comments, how many were positive, Zach?

388.

And how many were negative, Evelyn?

12.

Right.

And one commenter wrote, Thank you for creating the best social platform ever.

Love you.

With seven U's.

You think they've got bots creating their own comments?

Well, another one says, I love big boy very smart mark all in caps.

So, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Only 12 negative comments out of 400.

They're censoring comments.

You know what the topic of the speech was?

Tell me it was free speech.

Swear to God.

So, I'm going to teach Zach and the girl intern how to develop a source.

Sir, Jeff is magnificent at developing sources.

Play him the call.

No.

Jeff was developing a source earlier, and it's recorded on his phone.

Play it.

Hi, Stuart, this is Jeff Horowitz from the Wall Street Journal.

You fucking stupid.

Don't ever fucking call me again, you stupid fucking.

We have much to learn from him.

That was just your first call.

That was my 26th call, and I am out of numbers.

So, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to target one team.

That's the civic integrity team.

And they have a credo.

Be selfless, protective, fair,

representative, constructive, and conscious.

Do they mean conscientious?

I don't know what they mean, but these people are trying to do some good.

They're not supposed to care about growth.

I mean, of course they should be conscious.

And another member of the team quit Facebook and told Time Magazine, you write code that does exactly what it's

supposed to do, and then you have to argue with execs who don't want to think about integrity, and they shut you

down.

It is content.

It's a place to start.

I'm going to do a dive on each of the team members, and then I'm

going to write personalized messages for each of them I'll link to.

All right.

Let's send these two home.

They have a full class schedule.

They're learning a lot here.

Yeah.

Be conscious.

So, there will be signs around here that say breathe in and out.

That's good for you.

You're going to write a letter to every member of the civic integrity team?

Personalized.

Aren't there hundreds of people on that team?

Yeah, it'll take a few days and evenings.

But I think you're both really going to excel at this.

I'm excited for you.

I'm changing my major.

Good call.

This is your first time using the site?

I haven't used it in a while now.

I'm a sucker for ecstasy.

Maybe that's, like, I don't know.

Why not?

People want to date within their own vector?

Is that the right word?

Anyway, my thing is people assume I'm a finance

pro because I pledge to frat and I play golf.

Is that right?

By sight.

And a tall handicap.

And I'm in finance.

Why?

Okay, I guess you can't really blame people for a certain...

BJ!

Dude!

I know that guy.

He's my friend.

I trapped you down.

You were right.

I told you.

I told them.

Chlorophyll is an internal deodorant.

It's what?

It's an internal deodorant.

If you drink chlorophyll water every day, your sweat smells like flowers.

True story.

That's not what chlorophyll does.

Yeah, I read it.

Where?

It's all over Facebook.

Kill me.

What?

Totally.

Hours of

sleep, I just have to.

You're a loser.

I'll do that before you...

Yes?

What?

I tried calling Zach first.

It went to voicemail.

Who sent you to voicemail?

You guys are getting class credit for this.

In lieu of a salary.

You know what a proton message is?

It's an encrypted message.

How am I supposed to read it?

It's not encrypted for you, it's encrypted for everyone else.

Just follow the instructions on the screen.

What is that?

In the background?

A showboat.

You know it?

No.

It's the granddaddy of American musical theater, Old Man River.

Can't help loving that man.

He's just my boo.

Oh, I'm going to punch your head.

There's no doubt in my mind.

See that?

Yeah.

We got one.

Hey man.

Mike, can you read me three headlines that

are going to be on the front page tomorrow?

Any three, but word for word.

Hang on.

Thank you.

Jeff Horowitz?

I'm Frances Haugen.

That's a nice spot.

Is there a reason you chose it?

I can see anyone coming up the hiking trail before they see me.

I don't hike that much.

In fact, this is my first time.

I don't get it, but I guess I can see what...

With every minute I spend sitting next to you, I

maximize the chance I'll be seen by someone I work with.

So if it's alright with you...

Sure.

You can't use my name and this is all off the record.

Okay.

The Georgetown speech.

Yeah?

The first 400 comments, 388 were positive.

Is Facebook scrubbing the comments?

Who cares?

Hmm?

Who cares?

Well, the speech was about free speech.

Oh, got them!

Okay.

The 12 negative comments, did they have words like thanks and great?

Yes.

Yes.

They're running an emotion analysis program that can't detect sarcasm yet.

They?

Wait.

Wait, you sent me a message.

What would you like to talk about?

Watch a little of this.

Okay.

Conker literally being assholes to me because I'm white.

This guy's name is Atombo, swear to God.

And this ghetto bitch, I don't know, she's

fan of some shit, thinking he's fucking her.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny how you stopped talking.

It's funny, you're all in my face.

And now you're quiet.

You know, the thing about this is, she's the one who posted it.

It's an alt-right group and she thinks she looks good.

I made a friend in my spinning class about four years ago.

She volunteered for a lot of progressive causes

and for a progressive candidate for president.

She was angry when he didn't get the nomination.

She thought the DNC had rigged the process against him.

Yeah?

That's her.

This is your friend that volunteered for progressive causes?

And four years later, she's that.

So I wanted to find out who radicalized her.

And?

We did.

She became what we call a hyperuser.

In the last two years, she averaged nine hours and 22 minutes a day on the site.

But she's not an anomaly.

Uh-huh.

Listen, before I go on, I want to make something clear.

Okay.

I have a hunch you're not a fan of Facebook.

But I am.

Not just Facebook Blue, but Instagram, WhatsApp, the whole company.

I believe in our mission.

You and I are allies.

Okay.

I'm here to help Facebook, not hurt it.

Clear?

Yeah.

I've been dragging these around for weeks.

I can't get anyone's attention.

I ran classifiers on political groups.

I defined the parameters rigorously.

Groups where 30% of content has multiple risk factors.

Hang on.

I don't understand what you're saying.

What didn't you understand?

All of it.

Classifiers, parameters, risk factors.

Aren't you a tech reporter?

Ish.

Ish?

Don't worry about it.

Just get to the bottom line.

Alright, you did these things.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did these things.

And?

64% of people who join extremist groups on Facebook were sent there by our algorithm.

That can't be right.

It is.

64%?

Yeah.

Of people who joined extremist groups on Facebook

were sent there by your recommendation system?

Yes.

The chairman gavels a session to order.

He'll make an opening statement and review the rules of the game.

Seven minutes for the majority, seven minutes for the minority.

Back and forth for what committee council anticipates being around ten hours.

You'll be sworn in.

Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you

give to this committee today will be the truth?

The whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Uh-huh.

Please spell your name and state your current occupation for the record.

M-A-R-K-C-U-C-K-E-R-B-E-R-G.

And your occupation?

I'm a professional defendant.

As a reminder, you are not a defendant, you're a witness.

This isn't a trial, it's a hearing.

And this hearing is a globally broadcast

television show, and that's why you're paying me.

I understand all of the things that this

isn't and is, as well as why I'm paying you.

Good.

You read your statement, which we'll skip past for now.

That's a separate session, and we'll move to witness questioning.

Blair, is that the tie we chose?

They're bringing in more options.

Ed.

Mr. Zuckerberg, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the CDA,

exempts Internet service providers from liable laws that govern publishers of

books and newspapers.

Should Section 230 be repealed?

That's not how he's going to ask the question.

We know, but...

We've got seven minutes, this is going to be six minutes, thirty seconds.

Should 230 be repealed?

No.

Senator.

No, Senator.

Why not?

It would end the Internet.

Is that something your constituents are interested in doing?

Oh, Jesus Christ.

I don't think you do.

Charlie.

What?

I don't think you do.

Who is that?

Charlie Garrigan.

I don't think you do know why you're paying her.

Hang on.

Charlie Garrigan's here?

I wanted him here.

What the...

He won't hold back.

Hold back?

He wrote a fucking Heya Charlie editorial about...

Listen to me.

A batter steps up to the plate, he taps a donut off the back.

You jog with weights.

He's tough on you?

Good.

He gets under your skin.

You wrote an op-ed in the New York...

I don't care.

Do you?

Fine.

So, back to work.

It was a long fucking op-ed.

Right.

Section 230.

Let's hear it.

Our answer.

Senator, from our perspective, Section 230 does two basic things.

First, it encourages free expression, which is fundamentally important.

Without it...

Without 230, platforms could potentially be liable for everything that people said.

May I interrupt?

No, but thank you for asking.

Let him finish the answer.

Without 230, platforms could potentially be liable for everything that people said.

They'd face much greater pressure to take down more content.

One moment.

It's bad.

It's going to be a series of reports he's been working on in for months.

For months?

They're serious.

That's all I know.

What is he alleging?

That's all I know.

If it's a series...

He's alleging a lot.

Are they the source?

I don't know what he is.

I have a call with him in 20 minutes, just the two of us.

No lawyers yet.

But they're going to want us to come.

The timing couldn't be worse.

Right.

We don't say anything to Mark until we know more.

We have a lot to do today.

20 minutes?

Yeah.

Guy's been working on it for months and no one in PR...

No one in PR knew anything.

Unbelievable.

His speeches in DC, they're going to go crazy.

Brandon, turn your phone off and put it away.

He's going to lose his mind.

Mark, if they have content violations or a number of other criteria...

Or a number of other criteria.

So I'm quite focused on this.

We don't have any data today on the real world impact of that yet,

but what did you mean you don't think I know why I'm paying Rye?

She's a crisis specialist.

Fellas.

Rye Akinola is crisis PR.

She's who you use when whole economies are in jeopardy.

She's who monarchies use.

If this wasn't a crisis, would I even be allowed in the building?

These guys are counting on the next round of

congressional testimony to make you likable, Mark.

I'm happy to lend a hand, but I think you're doomed.

Okay.

So, revising or repealing Section 230 would end your business.

Follow up.

Sure.

What does MSI stand for?

Their response is going to be that they're

aware of the problem and they're working on it.

But I'm on the civic integrity team and we're the ones who would be working on it.

And everything you just told me, I mean, everything on these

index cards can only be proven with the internal documents, right?

Sure.

So what would you need?

To stand up the story?

Yeah.

With the internal documents?

No.

Or for you to go on the record?

Absolutely no.

I figured.

Just doing what I just did is a material violation of my NDA.

My last job I covered Washington where they're

pretty serious building into the press.

Not like this.

I love Facebook.

I believe in our mission.

Sure.

So that's it for me.

I've done my duty off the record.

I'm out.

You can collect evidence on your own.

Okay.

I mean it.

Please don't try and contact me.

I can't encourage you to violate your contract.

My paper would be sued and I can't encourage you

to break the law because it's against the law.

I'm not asking for encouragement.

I came here to say that we're playing with kerosene and matches.

You do the rest.

It was nice meeting you.

I'm a fan of some of your work.

You can leave first.

I'll wait.

Okay.

One other thing.

Look into something called MSI.

I've never heard of MSI but explain 64% again.

Why is this hard for you to understand?

I understand.

Just explain it again.

There's a chain of restaurants that serve heroin.

64% of their customers are there because Facebook

says we think you'll enjoy this restaurant.

Is he a nut?

We should give him a name.

My source?

So we have something to call him.

Call him Fred.

He's a middle-level engineer.

Is he a nut?

No.

I don't think so.

No, civic integrity was put into place in order

to examine the effects of Facebook at scale.

Polarization, mobilization of violence, misinformation.

They're supposed to put people's interests ahead of Facebook's.

They even take an oath to be conscious.

What?

They mean conscientious.

The point is some of them are true believers.

This may be one of them.

Or it may be a lure to see if they can get the new guy to chase a bad story.

Tech loves to embarrass old media and this newspaper does not like to be embarrassed.

Neither do I.

Fred's a dumb name for an alias.

I can change it.

No, you can't.

You said Fred.

It's Fred now.

We're all gonna be saying Fred like fucking idiots.

She ever in a good mood?

She is right now.

64%.

How's that happening?

How is that happening?

This is your first time, right?

Stand in the back and don't say anything.

You're after NBC.

Okay, you can come on in.

Hurry.

They're muscle guys pretending to type.

Are they security?

Don't talk.

Who's presenting?

I'm all.

Let's go.

Alrighty.

This meeting is a follow-up to your request during the H2MT integrity review.

You asked us to explore new levers to strengthen...

I don't know your name.

I'm all.

I'm all.

I don't need it previously on.

What are the decision points and what's the recommendation?

Okay.

Okay.

Integrity impact.

How much are we reducing the violation of borderline content?

Value to people.

Are we presenting meaningful engagement and positive sentiment?

And...

How many are there?

I'm sorry?

Three.

There are three?

To define terms, we define hard actions as a removal of violating content.

Our experiment focused on soft actions.

Everything short of removal.

So that includes demotions, downright...

You have to get to the end.

Okay.

We partially replaced downstream models...

This isn't the end.

Just give me an upside and downside.

Okay.

If we dial back downstream MSI, we can reduce civic misinformation by 38%.

38%.

Model shows if we stop boosting content, most likely to be re-shared.

We reduce civic misinformation by 38%.

The downside?

There's really not much.

This is a big win.

Can you assign really not much at number value?

A 1% reduction in engagement.

Just 1%.

You know what 1% is at scale?

That's 30 million people who just stopped scrolling.

Do you know what 38% is at scale?

Thanks.

That's it.

You can go.

Just 1%.

Fucking civic integrity.

They solve problems.

They point out problems.

You're going to hear a rumor.

The civic integrity team is being dissolved.

It's not.

It's not.

But if the team was dissolved, there's an argument

to be made that that would be a good thing.

We'd be absorbed into other teams.

There's no one else here, Frances.

The only one hiking today.

It's moving northwest.

It's going to stop in a minute.

You know, I'm happy to come to your place if that's easier.

At least a dozen Facebook employees live in my building.

Oh, staying at the Stanbridge Suites.

You have more talking doors.

You haven't found a place to live yet?

No, I should really do that.

What's on your mind?

It's been 51 days since I gave you the story.

64%.

Why haven't you printed it?

Because you didn't give me a story.

You told me a story.

I'm trying to find proof.

Hurry up.

Well, anytime you want to hand over the internal documents.

I thought you weren't allowed to ask me to break...

I'm not.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life being made

an example of by a guy with unlimited resources.

I told you already.

You and I aren't on the same team.

I remember.

Rain's stopping, as I said it would.

They're going to dissolve Civic Integrity.

It's only a matter of time.

Why do you say that?

Something that was said at a team meeting.

Sorry?

He has a ballistic couch in his office.

It's bulletproof.

He also has a bulletproof wall monitor.

How does a bulletproof couch protect you?

You cower behind it.

Right.

What have you found out about MSI?

Nothing.

Well, you're useless.

It's not the first time I've heard that.

Your company is very good at keeping its information private.

Which is more than I could say for its users.

We used Optimize for likes.

The algorithm wants you to stay on the site for as long as possible.

It's the same as terrestrial radio or network

television or any advertiser support business.

We knew what kept you scrolling because of likes.

Right.

And then two years ago, a decision was made to optimize

for what would be called meaningful social interactions.

The debate is over.

I want to optimize for MSI.

And the algorithm was changed.

I found a post office.

Oh, so you have done some work.

Mark felt that more personal posts...

Things like anniversaries, birthdays, graduations...

They were being crowded out by posts from brands.

They were.

The goal is to foster more genuine interactions.

And strengthen the sense of community on the platform.

Right.

He said, now I want to be clear.

By making these changes, I expect the time people spend

on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down.

Yeah.

He's a CEO deciding to make less money to improve his product.

Yeah.

So what's the problem?

Well, it doesn't explain how we radicalized my friend.

Which is what happened.

It just is.

What about your burger phone?

Do you expect me to photograph documents on that?

I'm only asking because it's a felony.

My phone number is in here.

You call me anytime you like.

Anything else you do with the phone, that's up to you.

I just wanted to tell you that they were going to dissolve Civic Integrity.

This was it.

This is a room full of people who shouldn't sing karaoke.

I've drafted a letter detailing some of my concerns in an election year.

I have it right here.

I thought some of us could sign it, or if we get enough team members...

Hang on.

Listen.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, Facebook abhors friction.

Every single thing he does seeks to eliminate human friction.

I know, but...

Frances.

Listen.

Frances.

Have you looked at political engagement in Stuttgart?

No, of course I haven't looked at political engagement in Stuttgart.

Civic was designed to create tension between growth and safety.

We write code that creates friction.

It's only a matter of time.

I'm not signing a letter, and you're not signing a letter.

Don't be frictional.

Delete that.

Sorry, I

was just sitting here, and I overheard.

We apologize.

No, I work for Facebook.

So if your daughter is being bullied, she should

report it to us, and we will shut it down.

It's not Facebook.

It's Instagram.

We bought it.

It's one company now.

Separate platforms, but one company.

You can report bullying.

Only if someone's doing it on their main feed, which no one ever does.

They set up hate pages.

They've made 11 hate pages about her.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I...

Enjoy your dinner, please.

Dad, no.

Just be a sec.

Excuse me.

It's her entire social structure.

It is for all of them.

Well, there was bullying when I was a kid.

But the velocity, the size of distribution, and the anonymity.

I used to get used to it.

When her gym teacher saw cuts on her leg.

My wife wants to talk to the parents.

Me, I want to go see the kids.

With the fucking fairway wood.

Unplug the goddamn thing.

You look nice.

What do you have?

No.

If anyone sees me coming or going, I want it to look like I'm on a date.

When you say a date, you mean a...

Yeah, yeah.

Still no story about 64%.

That's the only reason I contacted you.

That's the only reason.

How long did they take when Daniel Ellsberg gave them the Pentagon Papers?

No time.

They did it like that.

Do you really not see the difference between the two?

But the Pentagon Papers, he gave them the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers, yeah.

The switch to MSI wasn't to foster more genuine interactions

and strengthen the sense of community on the platform.

Our users were getting older.

Comments, reshares and likes all declining.

Engagement declining.

Guide every intervention.

Ranking for likes, ranking for videos, ranking chronological.

Nothing has stopped or even slowed, eroded.

If engagement keeps declining, and I don't see why

it wouldn't, it's going to be a bad earnings report.

We'd lose value in the third and fourth quarter.

How much value?

How do you know about this?

I bought an air-gapped computer.

That means it's never been connected to the internet.

It's an island.

It's simply a motherboard and a central processor.

I know what an air-gapped computer is.

Okay, well, the first time we spoke, you said you were stupid.

I'm sure I didn't say that.

Ish.

Hey, Woodward and Bernstein weren't White House reporters.

They were Metro.

You mean like they used moose?

Not Metro sexual, Metro report.

They covered the city.

I love what I do.

I want you to know that.

Democratization, giving a voice to, giving everyone, that's what we do.

I didn't say that well.

You've made it clear.

There's a photo on there.

Is it a photo of a stolen document?

Yes.

Okay, then I can't handle your laptop, but if

you'd open it, I'd be happy to see what's on there.

What?

Just open the damn thing.

Thank you.

This was part of a presentation given at a meeting two years ago this month.

Our users were getting older.

That's why engagement went down.

There, I have now, in addition to the ongoing

violation of my NDA, committed a crime.

Have you been reading about the virus?

Mm-hmm.

The novel virus.

Yeah.

I set up a Facebook group to share data.

People have posted papers and research.

Everyone's trying to estimate the infection rate.

Hmm.

There is one post that describes the kinetics of the virus.

For every case that's escalated to the ICU, there are 100 hidden

cases of fresh infections working their way up the pipeline.

Right now, there are 10 reported cases in the U.S.,

which means there are hundreds we don't see yet.

You know how fast that's going to multiply exponentially?

Fast.

And you know where those 10 cases are?

What?

No.

Right here.

Okay.

My point is, it's going to be bad.

What is it?

Never mind.

I wonder why he thought that changing the metric to MSI would reverse the trend.

And did it?

Did engagement increase?

I don't know.

They rejected your fake name.

I keep doing that.

You want to try another fake name?

No, we need a real name and a real email address.

Do you already have a Facebook account?

I do.

Evelyn, do you already have a Facebook account?

No.

Wait, what if� Open a fake Facebook page and start liking things.

I need to use your name.

But some people might think it's really me.

Let's get started.

Evelyn Dabrowski isn't necessarily a cop.

Here's what I want the profile to say.

Ann?

You're a young mother from Wilmington, North Carolina.

Wait.

And you don't trust the government.

Shit.

You're interested in politics, but you don't like politicians.

Shit.

And anything anti-immigrant, you give it a thumbs up.

Am I being punished?

I'll need your information.

Yep.

Engagement increased?

Everything increased, especially re-shares.

By how much?

50%?

Engagement and re-shares increased 50% in a year after introducing MSI.

Contagions.

Something doubles every day.

At the end of the first week, you'd have 128 times what you had at the start.

But at the end of the second week, you'd have 16,384 times as much.

Okay.

Next feature.

Imagine if you're unable to see the state of the world,

and we're only able to see it the way it was a week ago.

You'd think you were dealing with 128x, when really you're dealing with 16,000x.

That's this virus.

Relate.

Why did engagement go through the roof like this?

I don't know.

Maybe we should contact an investigative reporter.

I have to.

Hello?

Hey, it's me.

Yep.

Re-shares.

Re-share the posts.

Don't just like them.

Re-share them.

Okay, so that's it for me.

Yes, thank you.

Get home safe.

No, I mean this is really it.

I'm flying to Puerto Rico in the morning.

For how long?

For however long the virus lasts.

Wait.

Are you going to Puerto Rico?

Or are you moving to Puerto Rico?

I have celiac disease.

What is that?

It's an allergy to gluten.

An allergy?

What's the worst that can happen if you eat gluten?

Death.

But a result of the celiac disease is neuropathy, which means

my wrists and ankles respond to cold with a lack of blood flow.

It's painful.

I didn't know that.

Haven't noticed I wear gloves in like one wears a lot.

I thought it was a fashion choice.

Trying to make it work.

People are going to start working from home, so I'm

taking this opportunity to work where it's warm.

I'm renting a place in San Juan.

I got an airbnb on the beach.

We were just starting to get somewhere.

It is a terrible time for you to migrate to warm weather.

It's nerve damage.

It's inconvenient for me too.

A change in the algorithm that was designed to

show more wedding pictures boosted engagement 50%.

Yeah, figure out why.

I have to finish packing.

No, hang on to the phone.

No.

It's just a phone.

Keep it.

So what do you do now?

Write more letters and start all over again?

Yes.

Yeah, I'll start all over again.

While waiting for a cure to be found for a virus that was just

discovered, I will develop a new source and start all over again.

Because of gluten.

Okay, good luck.

Fuck.

We were getting somewhere.

What do you usually do when something like this happens?

When my source moves to Puerto Rico because of a global health crisis.

Let's regroup.

What do we have so far?

Where are we?

Facebook's algorithm is recommending hate groups at an alarming rate.

Yes, and I can't prove that yet.

That is a big story, but there is a bigger story.

What's the bigger story?

Why?

Why?

Why is the bigger story?

All right, what is the secret ingredient in MSI

that's making engagement increase by 50% in a year?

Their users are getting older.

They've got competition from TikTok.

They're in deep trouble.

Then they adjust the algorithm.

Call it meaningful social interaction.

Announce publicly that MSI might make engagement go down even more,

but that's okay because they know it is really going to go up.

What were they spiking the drink with?

I have to go back to the drawing board.

I have to find a new source.

No, I don't have that kind of patience.

Go to Puerto Rico.

Christina, every time we've met, Fred has come to me.

All right, I don't want to- Just get him to give you

the documents you need to stand up the 64% story.

He'll be pot committed.

Then he will help you get to the bottom of MSI.

I promise these sources, they are going to be safe, right?

If Fred is going to continue to risk his job and more, I'd rather it come from him.

I want the big story.

And then I want the bigger story.

Go to Puerto Rico.

With each new file he opens, he's creating a footprint.

He knows that.

Let me think about this.

Yes, think about this.

Take all of the next 10 minutes.

Right.

Oh, Jeff, you would know.

Settle a bit.

Is spatula a Yiddish word?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Who the fuck did you make that bet with?

Jeff?

Yeah?

You need to see this.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to find out who

we are, and more importantly, what we stand for.

You'll meet some of our chapter leaders, learn what we

can do for you, you can do for us, we can do together.

Are you ready to order?

Sure.

Um, try the mochongo and rice goons, and the sliced green bananas.

It'll just be a minute.

We're going to move away from section 230.

By the way, I do want to look at the alternate for the

230 questions and hear what we have for political ads.

Brendan, put your phone away.

Or else we're going to lose our jobs.

Okay, but that's Ryan.

Mark.

Political ads.

Well...

Senator.

Well, Senator.

Senator, I think lying is bad.

I do.

And I think if you were to run a political ad with a lie, that would be bad.

But I don't think the right thing to do is to

prevent the voters from seeing that you lied.

There it is.

I can live with that.

I think he just catches the corner of the plate.

It's less defensive.

I don't think it's defensive at all.

I think it's a win.

Everybody good over here?

Robbie?

Brendan?

Yes.

Jake?

Good.

Ed?

Excellent.

Charlie?

Are you fucking crazy?

I'd like to take a moment to commend whomever

thought it was a good idea to bring Charlie in, Ryan.

It's a good answer.

You're providing a service by exposing the voters to the lie.

It's a way of framing.

How does a voter know it's a lie?

He's not literally saying it.

We're talking about it.

He just literally did.

It's a way of framing.

He's trying to prevent the voters from making some...

The question the Senator asks, which Mark will be asked, was would she be allowed to pay to

run a campaign ad on Facebook that claimed her opponent voted for a bill she didn't vote for?

The facts are publicly available.

Are they supposed to consult the congressional record?

Are we?

I'm just gonna sit here while you do this because time means nothing to me.

You can't give that answer.

Maybe with a different tie?

You're announcing that the official policy of Facebook

now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation.

Not if it may cause imminent harm.

Okay.

Using census data, could I pay you to target predominantly black zip

codes to advertise that this year the election will be held on Wednesday?

When we roll out the census suppression policy...

No, just say no.

Say no.

We would never do that.

Charlie, where there's imminent risk of harm...

You're not fact-checking political ads?

It's a democracy.

I believe in free speech.

Yeah, everybody does.

This can't be your answer.

I'm not standing in between someone seeking office and the voters.

You are standing in between them.

You're like a crossing guard standing out in front of

a school, but you're not doing anything with your arms.

So the cars are just plowing down the children because it's a democracy.

The voters aren't children.

They don't need to be told to eat their vegetables.

And how about just telling us which ones are vegetables

and which ones are clumps of dirt in the shape of a carrot?

People can decide on their own without any help from me

if a politician or an advocacy group is telling the truth.

They can't.

I respect our users.

By lying to them.

I'm not the one who's lying.

And I'm not stopping them from seeing someone who is.

Most people know what they're being lied to.

How?

After they aired the first episode of Gilligan's Island, that night a lady called the

U.S. Navy and Pearl Harbor to report seven people shipwrecked in the South Pacific.

I don't know what the fuck to make of what he

just said, but I'm standing by the Bill of Rights.

Let me talk to you for a second.

What do you want from me?

What the hell?

As long as there's no risk of imminent harm, people can post what they want.

I'm not talking about the post.

The fact check situation on the post is bad enough.

I'm talking about ads.

Paid political ads.

You can't leave out the ones that...

What are you doing here?

Exactly.

Remember, not too long ago...

Fry asked me.

Remember, not too long ago, you valued my advice.

And you and this company did well by it.

That was a nice time, but it was replaced by another time where you wrote an op-ed.

That's how time works.

Do you remember what you urge your readers to do?

You have to put that aside for the moment.

That's what you beseech them.

And it's fair to say our interests may not be aligned.

We don't have time for this.

How much did you invest?

It doesn't matter.

How much?

I don't remember.

I'm not the firm.

You, personally.

Mark.

2.5 million.

And the return?

100x.

Yeah.

$250 million.

Calamitous.

And hopefully you didn't wake up to the calamity until after you'd divested, but if you

hadn't, your $2.5 million investment would have been worth this morning $1.2 billion.

So by all means, advise me.

You need to fact check political ads, and you need to reject the ones that...

I censor too much, and I hear it when I don't

censor enough, so I'm not going to censor at all.

Well, you are going to profoundly regret that decision.

Remember that time you made that hot-or-not website

in your dorm room and every girl in Boston hated you?

This is a worse decision than that.

Much worse.

Remember when you lost a billion dollars just to make a sanctimonious point?

Okay, listen.

This isn't the meeting where we talk about it.

That meeting happened already.

This is the meeting where we make me likable.

I shouldn't have said that.

I know what strangers think of me.

I get to read about it every day.

So does my wife.

So are my kids.

They work in the refs.

The reason why you hear it from the left and the

right on contact moderation, they work in the refs.

Facebook isn't the ref.

That's the point.

That's the point, Charlie.

We're not the ref.

We're the public square.

I'm a free speech absolutist, so accept where there's imminent harm.

You can't say absolutist and accept where there's imminent harm.

With the new optimizations, with the MSI, the fire hose

of bad information, you are injecting into the air supply.

It's becoming jet-powered.

It's hydraulic.

Harm, I promise you, is fucking imminent.

Shades of burgundy.

I don't like them.

Okay.

We need to get back to it.

What's happening back there?

Why does Teddy keep coming in?

Let me talk to him.

Don't worry about it.

Ellen.

Riot, we need him.

What?

The Wall Street Journal.

Are you gotta be kidding me?

Thank you.

If you'd called from the airport in San Francisco instead of the

airport in San Juan, I would have told you not to get on the plane.

This is the best banana daiquiri I've ever had.

Without knowing how many banana daiquiris

you've had that day, that one is the least.

An intern at my office set up a fake account.

She scrolled for hours every day and liked every thought.

After ten days, she was invited to join three

different groups, all labeled extremists by the FBI.

I want the internal documents.

I want proof that 64% of the members of extremist

groups on Facebook were sent there by your code.

Your code.

Pay for your dumb drink.

My bureau chief asked me, how do you know where to look for these things?

Your bureau chief knows about me?

Well, my bureau chief, her deputy, and my editor think you're a guy named Fred.

Because of the work I did at Pinterest and Google, I'm sort

of at the center of a Venn diagram of institutional knowledge.

Understand, I'm not a Basset hound you can

send into the woods to ferret out truffles.

I don't think Basset hounds do that, but sure.

I just want to be clear.

You love your work?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I love my work.

I get it.

It is a good job, great pay, stock options, benefits.

No, I'm paid what I'm worth, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Sorry.

Connecting people, it's a virtuous mission.

Some people are awkward, Jeff.

Some people are self-conscious in social situations.

And they get to be their best self when they're alone at their keyboard.

We are, in fact, changing the world.

Yeah.

You know what?

It's not clear.

You know, when you first started, we were warned about you.

They put your picture up on the screen and everything.

When in history have the people who've warned about the press been the good guys?

You think we're the bad guys?

I think that you're the best tool the bad guys have ever had, and

you're about to show me proof of that, so let's move it along.

That's like blaming the Zodiac Killer on pencils and paper.

It's nothing like that.

We are about democratization.

I've heard that.

I've also heard you're making the world a better place.

Smug it up all you want, but we are.

Sixth grade girls are calling each other

broke bitch, so I'm not entirely sold here.

You're talking about the culture.

We're talking about democratization.

Yeah.

Frances, democracy is the best form of government.

It is not the best form of everything.

I appreciate the mansplaining.

Speaking on behalf of all men now, we've heard that feedback.

We've considered it, done some introspection, come to the conclusion

that is something that women say when they're losing an argument.

You don't think everyone deserves a voice?

Everyone has a voice.

We're born with one.

Not everyone deserves a microphone.

Not everyone gets to write for the Wall Street Journal.

That's the point.

Credentials.

You have to be good to work there.

You have to earn it.

Yeah.

Try getting a job at Facebook.

First, I'm going to show you the network architecture maps.

You know you have to explain all this, right?

Uh-huh.

Andy, hang on.

I'm just looking for reception.

Okay, hey.

We've got it.

We can hold another week if you don't think...

No, no, no.

We've got it.

Documentation.

Interaction among the extremist groups.

Groups you should join.

Impact study.

A blind quote from the source.

They're playing with kerosene in matches.

We, we are playing with kerosene in matches.

Can we say he was on the civic integrity team?

No.

A Facebook engineer who's remaining anonymous, so it's...

Hey, hang on.

I've got another call.

Hello?

The intern in your office, you said it was ten days before there was contact?

Yeah.

It's a lot less time than it took my friend.

Why, why do you think?

The re-shares.

When I was in your room, you made a phone call, was it to the intern?

It was.

And you told her to re-share, not just to like, but to re-share.

That's right.

I'm on Pacific Time.

I work from noon to ten.

Meet me tomorrow at the place with the dumb drink.

It was just a banana attack.

Andy.

Yeah, I'm here.

Listen.

I know there are easier enemies to make.

The Mafia would be an easier enemy to make.

Yeah.

But we're gonna publish.

Hi, Miriam.

Hi, Francis.

Thank you for meeting with me.

Sure.

I got your message.

We have a problem.

I'm afraid we need you to come back here.

Hey.

The re-shares.

We need to go to Truffle Island.

I have to go back home tomorrow morning.

Why?

Turns out Facebook policy doesn't permit working from territories.

Even during company-wide phases of remote work.

Oh.

Sorry.

Okay.

Back to gloves and leg warmers.

I can work from my hotel.

We're not going to be doing any of this anymore.

I'm done.

Okay.

For real.

And I'm humoring you.

The 64% piece ran today.

It was comprehensible.

I have done my duty.

Francis, there's...

At some point, they're going to be able to trace it.

All they have to do is locate the...

Has anybody said anything?

No.

But when HR contacted me this morning...

You thought it was about the story?

Yeah.

And that scared the hell out of you for a minute?

For a lot more than a minute.

For more than a minute.

Who does this?

Like, I'm not a Frank Capra character.

I wouldn't have thought you watched Frank Capra movies.

Why not?

I don't know.

I've seen them both.

Oh, he's made more than two.

The big ones.

I know what you're talking about.

But you should still see Lost Horizon, Arsenic, and Old Lace.

Here comes the...

Oh, my God.

Shut up.

Okay.

Who does this?

This isn't something I'm doing until I can do the thing I really want to do.

This is the thing I really want to do.

You sent a LinkedIn message to everyone in Civic Integrity.

Why was I the only one who wrote back?

It's because you're French.

Barely a fright.

It was someone I knew, and I overreacted.

Take this.

Do you want one of them?

Just take it.

Yes, I know what to look for.

Where to look for.

But do you think that I'm the only one?

So, this is...

I'm sorry.

I would like to have some Spartacus-rated courage of my conviction, but I don't.

Art and literature set a pretty high standard for who we're supposed to be.

Antigone.

John Proctor.

A Tale of Two Cities, I can't remember his name.

Gandalf, for God's sake.

And maybe I am Chicken Little.

Maybe none of it's a big deal.

Maybe none of it's a big deal.

Anyway, I'm not going to risk my job, my future, or my freedom anymore to help a

reporter who, let's face it, is biased against tech because we're taking journalism jobs.

Who does this?

I appreciate all the help you have given me

and the risks that you've taken to do it.

I'm sorry you had a scare and you were absolved.

For the record, my bias isn't because tech is taking journalism jobs.

It's because you are doing them so badly.

It's a big deal.

Have a safe flight back, Frances.

The Wall Street Journal.

This is a series they've been working on.

For months.

A series?

Nobody knew they were working on this?

Cynthia's on vacation.

Way to throw your boss under the bus.

The head of media relations is in Kathmandu.

That's the reporter.

Jeff Horwitz.

I just got off the phone with him.

It's going to be Instagram and mental health.

Crosscheck favors elites.

Drug cartels use our services openly.

Human traffickers use our services openly.

Vaccinations.

Internal chat boards.

And they're starting off with MSI.

He has a source and he has internal documents.

Bloody hell.

Wait, say again, what?

He has a source?

He won't give me his name, but he used to work here.

When did they publish?

Starting Monday.

What did you say it was?

Jeff Horwitz.

He broke the 64% story last April.

Did you know this was happening?

No.

I don't know anything about this.

You haven't spoken to this guy?

Jeff Horwitz?

I've spoken with him, but I don't know anything about this.

Any source that used to work here?

Fuck!

Keep your voice down.

I have a meeting with Horwitz at six tonight.

He's coming here.

Just him and me on background and that's when I'll know more.

Six tonight?

Six o'clock.

Let's get back to work.

What was that about Instagram and mental health?

Hmm?

When he listed what the journals got, he said Instagram and mental health.

Nothing.

We're aware of the problem and we're working on it.

And MSI?

I am not a sheep.

I'm not a sheep.

Show me the law.

Do your research.

I'm not a sheep.

I don't know.

Do your research.

Show me the law.

The federal or state law.

The store is the right...

Do your research.

Ma'am.

Show me the federal or state statute that requires me to wear a mask.

Ma'am.

The store is the right...

Show me the statute.

Ma'am.

I have my purse in my purse.

You can have it.

You are a sheep.

You can have it.

You don't let me fly.

Hi.

Can I come in?

I'm tested.

Sure.

I didn't even know you knew where I lived.

I live in this building.

We just never run into each other.

Sorry I keep it so hot in here.

You know why.

Frances, at that goodbye party, you showed me the letter you were going to send.

It was on your screen.

Okay.

You said, we're playing with kerosene and matches.

In the letter on your screen that night.

And that was the blind quote in the journal story.

You're working with Jeff Horwitz.

No.

Morgan.

You and I don't know each other very well.

I can explain all of this.

If you found out there was a recent internal study done on the effects of

Instagram on teenage girls with body image issues, which is all of them,

what would be an acceptable percentage of that test

population whose issues were found to have gotten worse?

Anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts as a result of time spent on the platform.

What would be an acceptable percentage for you of teenage girls whose

body image issues got worse as a result of their time on our website?

2%?

1%.

32%.

That study.

This one.

Please give this to your friend.

Before they start marketing Instagram kids.

There's an explanation for this.

Have you considered that your camouflage might be drawing more attention?

The same thing.

Okay.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember what hotel this was.

That's why I didn't call first.

Marriott, Moda, Hilton, Hyatt, Embassy Suites, Doubletree.

I couldn't remember.

I only knew where it was.

And I gave back the phone.

And I parked down the hill.

And it's raining.

You alright?

Well, I look ridiculous.

I should have called that out, I guess.

What's that guy so happy about?

Hmm?

The one who just punched the air in front of him.

Why is he so happy?

It's a replay.

He hit a 30-foot jump shot to tie the game in the last second.

Is everything okay?

Just a tie?

He's that happy for a tie?

They go into overtime.

Did he win in overtime?

We'll see if the game's not over.

I can't remember ever being that happy.

Have you ever been that happy?

It's the guy who punched the air.

I've never been that happy.

I'm the girl in class with her hand raised that nobody wants the teacher to call on.

I should have just stopped raising my hand.

You wanna sit?

Downstream MSI.

I don't know what that is.

Oh shit, you do not.

What happened out there?

Downstream MSI is the avalanche for follow-on

activity that makes a post go viral.

Okay.

Just listen.

In the beginning, the best thing you could do was like a post.

If you liked a post, we'd show you more things like that.

Then two years ago, we optimized for MSI.

Here's what changed.

Emoji responses will be worth five times as much as a like.

Comments will be worth 15 times as much as a like.

And reshares will be worth 30 times as much.

The algorithm wants to show you content.

They're gonna reshare.

It wants that badly.

The algorithm shift is easily positioned as an adjustment that's good for people.

Not good for Facebook.

Now, I wanna be clear.

By making these changes, I expect the time people spend

on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down.

Can you guess what the problem is?

By prioritizing content that gets reshared at 30 times the power of a like?

Wait.

Raya.

No, wait.

Ma, we know what gets reshared the most.

Raya.

We already know.

Outrage bait.

We already know.

Raya.

We have God knows how many internal studies

showing what gets reshared the most.

We already know.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

At a time when we're trying to address misinformation, hyper-partisanship,

hate speech, you're going to amplify and turbo-charge it.

He's right, Raya.

You're not supposed to.

It's antithetical, David, to connecting people.

Which, as I understand, was the whole use of it.

It's a public company.

We have studies.

Clear as day.

We're a court board.

What?

We're a court board.

We don't control what people pin to it.

But you can, right?

The debate is over.

I want to optimize for MSI.

Jesus, Francis, somewhere in that computer is evidence that senior leadership knew.

That he knew that the things most likely to be reshared are...

Anything that makes you angry.

That's just something that happened.

I got it.

It's okay.

He's gone.

Room service.

I ordered dinner.

Relax.

It's okay.

In your experience, how hard is it to get

powerful people to change something they're doing?

When it's about money, it's hard.

Yeah.

But when it's not about money, it's really hard.

You have to cause pain.

You have to make it hurt.

I quit my job today.

You quit your job?

I don't take their money while I'm stealing their documents.

I lose access midnight, Friday.

So we have 102 hours to get everything.

How much do you think there is on MSI?

No.

I need everything.

This is a study that hasn't been made

public of Instagram and Team Mental Health.

There's also going to be evidence of drug cartels and drug traffickers.

Human traffickers.

You guys are going to need more ink.

102 hours.

If I work here, it'll save time running back and forth with the phone.

Sydney Carton.

It's the name of the hero in Tale of Two Cities.

They chop his head off.

See, this is what I'm talking about.

I get it.

Let's go to work.

Don't say users.

Say people.

Don't say humans.

It sounds like you're running an experiment.

Blair, you have one job.

To find a necktie for this man here.

It's not as simple as it seems.

It can't possibly be more complicated than it seems.

You'd be surprised.

I'd be thunderstruck.

Blue.

We trade.

Different blue.

Okay.

Feel.

Felt.

Found.

Acknowledge how people feel.

Acknowledge that others have felt the same way.

And share what Facebook has found and is doing about it.

Yeah, in fact, check political ads.

We are past that now.

Then go back to it.

This isn't the meeting where we do this.

Facts are subjected.

No, they're not.

They are, actually.

They are.

What if a political ad said that a president created six

million jobs, including a half a million manufacturing jobs?

To fact-check that, you'd have to determine whether that was net or gross, whether the active voice

claiming causation was appropriate, and whether the job growth stemmed from pre-existing economic momentum.

Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Stop.

Go with that.

Mark.

Enough!

You've been at me all morning, and I'm done.

People around here understand that when I say no, that's the end of the debate.

I'm not two years out of a dorm room anymore, Charlie.

Look around.

Okay, guys.

Dammit.

Well, look.

You're acting like a jilted lover.

Charlie, you are.

I remember that.

When you were briefing against me.

We met once.

We met once a week, every week for three years.

Once, like, once upon a time.

You gave me advice.

I took some of it.

All of it.

Some of it.

Did you sell to Yahoo?

I didn't.

You're welcome, but that doesn't...

You committed a pretty stunning act of betrayal, and now we don't meet anymore.

Oh, I left when you started commoditizing gullibility.

And so I lost a ton of money.

And I'm troubled that you think that that's

something I should find embarrassing.

Sure, if you see.

Do you know what the three most popular posts were yesterday?

No.

Two of them were factually absurd.

One of them was perverse.

All three were hysterical and stupid.

And none of them had any news value at all.

Those people are perverse, hysterical, and stupid, Charlie.

That's not me posting that shit.

But aren't you a little embarrassed?

We don't meet anymore, so I don't know why you're here.

I'm here to tell you fact-check political ads.

Well, I'm here to say no.

It's impossible, Charlie.

At scale, it's impossible.

Expecting real-time vetting?

Millions of political ads across diverse electoral systems

in a hundred different languages simply isn't a possibility.

You're going to sell fewer ads.

That's all.

You're going to sell fewer ads, but you're not going to care, because political

advertising accounts for less than one-half of one percent of your revenue.

A fraction that can more than be made up for in the goodwill that comes from people

knowing that a political advertisement on Facebook platforms is factually accurate.

Change a zero to a one or a one to a zero.

Just do it.

You finished?

Or is it possible that the politicians who stand to benefit the most from misinformation

are also the ones most likely to create a more relaxed regulatory environment?

The ones least likely to reform Section 230?

It's a business, Charlie.

You know why we don't fact-check ads?

It's because we don't have to.

Are you new?

All right.

Body language, Mark.

Start with a gentle nod to show engagement.

Let me see it now, whilst I'm talking to you.

Yeah, not so much, a little softer.

Yeah.

We're switching in as tied, are we not?

Shed the fat.

What's going on back there?

What?

They need Mark.

Forget the Wall Street Journal, I can't today.

No, it's the Capitol.

What's happened at the Capitol?

They've made contact with the police.

It's been declared a riot.

Are you seeing this?

They just put out an agency-wide bulletin.

Anyone with a badge and a gun will set up an IPOC.

A what?

Stands for Integrated Product Officer War Room.

The European political parties are telling us the change

to MSI forced them to produce more negative content.

Here in this room, you haven't been tested.

You need to be wearing a mask.

We're going to put the fifth in confidence model for the hate speech demotion.

The rioters are talking to each other.

We need to review this PR in the next five minutes.

We're going to need to play feed this room.

We're just waiting for private approval to do 100%.

Are we going for the 100X threshold?

100X for the threshold?

Somebody talk to me.

That's a question for Zach.

Cross-check allows elite users to post without moderation.

Who qualifies as an elite user?

That's the problem.

I need Jordan, and I need...

We let him keep posting.

He's a civic president.

I didn't teach any math at your school.

Did you go to a Baptist school where math was like witchcraft or dancing?

I went to a regular school.

Keep up.

Look at the MQ dashboard now.

More and more users are getting massive distribution.

MSI changes directly to production.

We can't wait.

Hey, buddy.

It needs tighter filtering.

This is our business.

We have to tighten the filtering.

The effort to attract pre-change is going beyond Instagram.

You're going to want to see this document.

Documentation on all 60 key metrics.

Insating any key metrics for these pages.

Demoting all key metrics.

Disable comments from high-risk groups.

Yes.

Re-post it again.

Is he telling them to disperse?

We judge the risk of fake positive outweighs the benefits of automation.

That's internal policy.

So the risk of incitement isn't as bad as the

risk of blowback if they remove a post, yeah?

Frances?

Use my name.

You don't want to do that.

This would all have more weight if I wasn't anonymous, right?

When this happens, I tell my sources to take 24 hours.

As soon as you publish, they're going to narrow it down to five people.

With this combination of documents, the way they

trace it, I cannot explain it to you because...

I'm stupid.

...how dumb you are, but they are going to know that it was me.

So it would have more weight if it wasn't anonymous.

How many times have you told me you love your job?

You've got to cause pain, right?

It's got to hurt.

Take...

I don't need 24 hours.

Use my name.

I'm on the record.

I'm taking dinner orders.

Royal salmon with a nice Dijon aise.

Hamburger.

Uh, guys?

Come here a second.

I want you to meet Frances.

It's Evelyn and Zach, the interns I was telling you about.

It's nice to see me.

See you.

Meet you.

I'm sorry, between school and the internship and...

Him.

Him.

Yeah, there hasn't been much sleep.

It turns out we ran the same experiment as you.

Fake account, fictional woman named Carol.

We got pretty much the same result.

I'm being recruited by the Idaho militia.

We're in here.

Okay.

Frances.

You're cool.

Uh, I think you're mistaken.

I'm not.

Pretty sure I friended Carol.

Everybody, this is Fred.

And Frances.

I'm Jeff's editor, Andy Butler.

Hi.

Christina McCann.

Christina.

Tom Dash.

Good to meet you.

Police.

Thank you for coming in to speak with us.

I understand you've been working around the clock for a while.

Uh, yeah.

It's like your interns.

I just need some sleep.

You need some lawyers.

Have you considered seeking whistleblower status?

People don't hire whistleblowers.

Her days in tech would be over.

Have you considered it?

No.

I have.

No, no, no, no.

It's one thing to go on the record.

She's going to get sued into small pieces if she doesn't get protective status.

Well, to get whistleblower protection, you

need to testify in front of a federal body.

Congress.

In person.

You want to do that?

No.

Right.

Someone's going to have to explain all of this to them.

I had to explain it all to you.

A lot.

Someone's going to have to explain all of this to them.

Christina.

I work for the Wall Street Journal, so my

credit as a free market capitalist is solid.

And even I think this needs government intervention.

Congress has to pass some laws.

Pronto.

You'd be testifying on television.

Okay?

There would be press.

We're the press, Jeff.

And the internet would have its way with you.

You'll be taken out for a dance.

I know.

Sort of a fitting punishment.

Why do you need to be punished?

You spent the last year telling me to take some responsibility for the code.

I was being manipulative.

She pays me to be.

Not very much.

Look, Frances.

I've already spoken to Whistleblower 8.

What?

They're going to set me up with the SEC.

God damn it.

Hey, guys.

Frances and I are going to talk alone for a minute.

Hey.

Yeah?

This reporting.

Your work on this.

You don't have to say something nice.

Great, thank you.

Okay.

That nerd in there.

She's smarter than any of us.

She's going to be fine.

This is what it looks like when it's good.

Good job, boss.

You guys should really go home.

You probably got a couple hundred documents.

We'll stay and start indexing them.

Evelyn and Zach, I have 21,323 documents.

He's here.

Send him in and then say.

Jeff.

Eddie.

Yeah.

Jeff Horowitz.

This whole meeting is off the record.

Yeah.

Someday, huh?

As soon as the first protester hit the first cop, I texted my girlfriend

and told her I had to work late because we're going to get blamed for this.

Mark wanted me to give you a message.

Okay.

A few months ago, Mark posted a picture of me riding a hydrofoil.

New York Times said he was riding an electric surfboard, but he wasn't.

It was a hydrofoil.

Mark would like you to get shit right.

I don't work for the New York Times.

He met in general.

That's the bad press that he's worried about right now?

No, he's not worried about that either.

Teddy, as we discussed on the phone.

Francis Haugen is your source.

Was it hard to trace the footprints?

She didn't have many friends around here.

I wonder if her motives will get questioned.

As we discussed on the phone, the journal is

going to publish a series of investigative pieces.

Facebook files.

Yeah.

I hate alliteration.

But we have a few questions that we need you to respond to in 72 hours.

You know you ruined that girl's life.

When she gets up in front of Congress, that'll

be the last time anyone hears from her.

Maybe she'll get a job in an apple store.

She's going to be fine.

No.

She won't be.

And if that girl didn't have immunity, I'd walk her to prison.

Well, she does.

She's going to testify.

Congress to the rescue.

That's a pretty analog solution.

Teddy.

Jeff.

We're twice as big as the biggest country on Earth.

When I'm frightened of Congress, we're post-government around here.

Please.

Please let me quote that.

No.

Would it be better if I came back tomorrow?

Give us a sentence of the questions.

Why did Facebook shut down the civic integrity team?

Go on.

Why did Facebook ignore FBI warnings last year about QAnon being a threat

so that more than 3 million people were members of QAnon Facebook groups?

It's bullshit.

My assistant.

Why did Facebook algorithms promote content that undermined

the country's pandemic response with lies about vaccines?

God damn it.

Anything else?

Just from my own curiosity, does Facebook juice the comments under Mark's posts?

You know, I think we should do this tomorrow.

Yeah, that's no problem.

I'll arrange it with your office.

But again, insurrection or no insurrection, you've got 72 hours.

I don't know what that fucking girl thinks she's doing.

She's disrupting.

She's in here.

Thanks.

You only have about a minute.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Have you been in this room before?

Yeah, I have.

They told me this room was used for triage.

They brought Capitol Police officers here on makeshift

stretchers after they'd been beaten and tased.

They replaced the carpet because they couldn't check with the blood out.

How are you feeling?

I'm okay.

You have no gloves.

I didn't want to look like a freak.

Before you go out there, I want to give you some advice.

Okay.

Try not to be mean to the U.S. Senate.

I'm not mean.

I am a delightful person.

Sure, I've called you stupid on a number of occasions to take your job, to rob a reasonable

brand, but I do think it's remarkable how far you've gone with how little you have, because

you're not a freak.

You're just really mean.

I'm not mean.

Like scary mean.

It's time.

This committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

You should redeploy the feedboost with the October conflict.

Did you turn off break the glass on election day?

No.

We need labels on every post that attempts to delegitimize the election.

No ambiguity, no soft language.

We have to say something like the U.S. has laws and protocols.

Did you just post a video?

Mark?

This is the subcommittee.

My name is Frances Howkin.

I used to work for Facebook.

I joined Facebook because I believe it has the potential to bring out the best in us.

But I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products

harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.

Did you just post another video?

Take it down.

It's not a simple matter of certain social media users being angry

or unstable, or about one side being radicalized against the other.

It's about Facebook choosing to grow at all costs,

buying its profits with our health and safety.

Brian, need to get the M-Team started on talking points.

Sure.

Any suggestions, Brendan?

In my time at Facebook, I came to realize a devastating truth.

Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook.

The documents I've provided to Congress prove that Facebook has

repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals.

About the safety of children.

About the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems

and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages.

You've got to say something, Mark.

Facebook wants you to believe in a false choice.

That you must choose between extreme and divisive content.

The country was founded on free speech.

Realized big tobacco was hiding the harms it caused.

The government took action.

Our cars were safer with seatbelts.

The government took action.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm now happy to answer your questions.