The Real Ugly Truth
People love to hate Facebook. And yet after 15 years, users still flock to the platform, myself included. The paradox inherit in this contradiction led Sheera Frenkel and Cecilla Kang to write a book entitled An Ugly Truth. In it, they attempt to shed light on this paradox. They meticulously interviewed over 400 individuals that worked for Facebook, gathering internal emails, memos, and white papers from an exceptional list of sources. Highlighted throughout are the two main actors, Marc Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
As someone interested about web technologies and passionate about privacy, I read this book with great interest. I expected to find stark evidence of corporate maleficence, disregarding personal privacy in the search for profit. Instead, I found a host of facts that were poorly integrated into tired narratives. Several problems emerged.
Problems with An Ugly Truth
Interviewing former employees provides a great way to gain knowledge about the inner workings of Facebook. These ex-Facebookers were no longer bound by confidentiality agreements, giving them leeway to talk. However, many of such former employees leave an organization because they are unhappy with it, whether rightly or wrongly. Interviews with such employees would certainly give the impression that things were deeply problematic. However, that’s just half of the story. We the readers can’t know if such former employees are highlighting legitimate issues or merely projecting their unhappiness. They may even state some important issues but leave off important facts. The authors, Kang and Frenkel, never address this limitation. They merely repeat that “some employees” complained to highlight a “problem”.
Even when gathering evidence from existing employees, Kang and Frenkel treat ad hoc complaints as systemic problems. They start with phrases such as “One engineer posted…” or “Several employees confronted…” or “Some of the female employees expressed…”. They use these examples to suggest that whatever point they want to make is true. Yet, these ad hoc examples do not prove there is a problem, only that some employees imagine there is a problem.
Throughout the book, I felt a growing unease with the authors approach to free speech. Two problems emerged. First, I noticed that every discussion of hate speech focused on conservative and right-wing examples. I began to wonder if the authors exhibited a bias in their writing. The bias of the authors became clear, when on page 208, they say: “Hate speech wasn’t easily defined; it was constantly changing and culturally specific. New terms, ideas, and slogans were emerging daily and only human beings deeply enmeshed in the world of the extreme, far-right movements cultivating such speech could keep up with its nuances” [emphasis mine]. Kang and Frenkel make their bias clear in that line, presuming that only far-right movements promote hate speech. Unfortunately, this bias taints many of the chapters, exposing the authors’ narrative they hope to promote.
The second problem with free speech emerged with their unprincipled approach to the concept. They belittle Zuckerberg’s clear commitment to free speech. While the authors claimed to champion the privacy of users, when Facebook used the same argument for less savory speech, the authors pounced. They suggested that privacy should not be tolerated because it allows hate speech to thrive. Privacy within Facebook groups lets individuals with divergent thoughts interact with each other without observation or critique from the outside world. That, according to the the authors, should not be tolerated. While I can support the idea that immoral activity should not be protected by privacy claims, the same cannot be said about vague definitions of “hate speech”. Furthermore, they authors fail to acknowledge the complexity of this approach when working internationally. Some countries define “hate speech” differently than in the US. How should Facebook respond to such requests? That’s not something the authors address.
Conclusion
While Kang and Frenkel provide a deep dive into Facebook’s history, the real ugly truth centers on the conflicting and biased writing embedded within. Because these issues are deeply embedded within the book, it makes identifying them that much harder. This makes the book much more dangerous than helpful. It provides fodder for haters of Facebook, without addressing some of its underlying issues. One problem almost became clear late in the book when they quote Chris Hugh’s, cofounder of Facebook, “I’m angry that his [Zuckerberg’s] focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” The focus on clicks and “engagement” lead to a platform that appeals to emotions. Both sharing emotional states on the platform and reacting to others’ emotions with more emotions. Had this been the focus of the book, many of the issues they discuss would have made much more sense. Alas, it is not the focus.
Its because of these reasons I rate the book a 2/5.
