Facebook Papers Unraveled: Public Perception and Reactions

For Facebook, 2021 is the year that just can’t end quickly enough. Rocked by data breaches, internal leaks, rocky share prices, and accused of playing a core part in the January riot in Washington, Facebook is under pressure.

Now, The Facebook Papers project has turned the screw a little more, releasing a trove of internal company documents leaked by Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower at the center of the revelations.

The documents provide unparalleled insight into Facebook’s inner workings, detailing internal policies, arguments, complaints, worries about the direction of the platform, its involvement with spreading hatred and political violence, and much, much more.

What Are the Facebook Papers?

In late September 2021, The Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of articles containing information from a series of internal Facebook documents.

At that time, the origin of the documents was unknown, though the reports first revealed that several high-profile users were given special account protections and allowances despite their links to harmful content. Furthermore, the WSJ revealed Facebook’s approaches to drug and human trafficking on its platform, as well as Facebook’s internal knowledge of how harmful Instagram can become for young girls and women struggling with self-image.

Then, in early October 2021, Frances Haugen revealed herself as the Facebook whistleblower who first filed complaints against her former employer for a range of issues, ranging from profiting from pushing hateful and divisive content to the company consistently choosing profit over safety.

Accompanying her revelations was a trove of internal Facebook documents gathered over the period before her leaving the company. The papers, all of which were disclosed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, were also provided to Congress and a number of news publications (although in redacted form).

The consortium of news publications, involving over 17 American outlets and a separate consortium of European news outlets, all began publishing revelations from the internal document from at 7am on Monday, October 25, leading Facebook’s VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg to tell employees that “We need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I’m afraid.”

The video below is Haugen’s interview on 60 Minutes, where she details many of the revelations found in the Facebook Papers.

Zuckerberg Believes It’s an Attack on the Company

Despite the damning nature of the documents, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the leaked documents as a coordinated effort to attack the company.

I believe large organizations should be scrutinized and I’d much rather live in a society where they are than one where they can’t be. Good faith criticism helps us get better. But my view is that what we’re seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company.

He goes on to talk about how the polarization of US politics and indeed, society at large, began long before he was born, and that Facebook will never solve these issues on its own.

Is This the End for Facebook?

Despite claims that Facebook ignores user safety, puts profits over everything else, contributes to political violence and civil unrest, and much more, there are very few indications that this is the end of Facebook.

Indeed, if the stock markets are anything to go by, Facebook’s stock price only dropped by a few percentage points, showing that at the very least, the financial markets believe Facebook is going absolutely nowhere.

The wider backdrop might see even more users leave the platform, with Facebook already struggling to attract the younger audience who view the platform as outdated and full of misinformation. Despite Facebook’s enormous clout, massive revelations like this will hurt its image in the long run, especially with a younger audience growing up in a socially aware world.