Image: Alessio Jacona
Facebook under fire

Good morning! This Thursday, Facebook knows a lot more about its users than it admits, DoorDash is suing New York yet again, Tencent does a lot of online charity (for better or worse), and Adobe is working on a payment system because why not?
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For the last three days, The Wall Street Journal has published a series of damning scoops about Facebook's internal research. The big takeaway: Almost everything Facebook has denied knowing — whether it's about viral content, the way people perceive themselves online, how politicians get special treatment — the company and its leaders actually did know, and probably had studied.
The WSJ is calling its series "The Facebook Files," which appear to come from a compilation of files leaked to the paper from a whistleblower who is also speaking with Congress and the SEC. Here are the most important takeaways from each of the stories so far.
The company whitelists VIP accounts in a program called XCheck, allowing high-profile figures to post without moderation or continue to post despite violating rules that would get "ordinary" users punished.
Instagram makes some teenage girls feel worse about their bodies. Internal Facebook research into Instagram found that for girls who already feel badly about their bodies, about one-third of them feel worse after spending time on Instagram.
A shift away from news made the platform worse. The third WSJ story, published yesterday, revealed that when Facebook tried to shift its timeline to focus more on "meaningful social interactions" and less on news, the platform got more negative and divisive. (While the documents reveal Facebook's own knowledge here, this particular story is the one that most people probably know quite well.)
As a whole so far, these stories paint a picture of a company well-aware that its critics are often right, and yet it remains unwilling to admit it. But as one former researcher told the WSJ: "We're standing directly between people and their bonuses." If user engagement is directly tied to people's paychecks, is anyone really surprised?
Facebook supports updated regulations, including four areas where lawmakers can make quick progress:
Box's Aaron Levie is pleased with the California's recall election outcome:
Ex-Theranos employee Erika Cheung thought the company risked patient safety:
Good leaders have high IQs. Nike's Phil Knight says Tim Cook has more than that:
In response to The Facebook Files, California Rep. Ro Khanna says social media needs regulation:
Pagaya Technologies plans to go public via SPAC. The deal values the fintech startup at roughly $9 billion.
David Hijirida is Acorns' new president. He's a former Amazon exec and led the digital bank Simple Finance before it flopped.
Discord raised $500 million, and is now worth $15 billion. That's more than double its last valuation.
Jacqueline Beauchere is joining Snap as its first global head of platform safety. Beauchere worked at Microsoft as chief online safety officer.
Nina Gregory is leaving NPR for Clubhouse, where she'll work as its first head of news and media publishers. She worked as the senior editor at NPR's Arts Desk.
Marcela Martin joined Chegg's board. She's the CFO of Squarespace.
What's that word for Amazon's signature management style? Oh right, it's called "Bezosism," at least according to Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Mims, who wrote about it in his book "Arriving Today."
The new book gets into everything that happens before a package arrives at your door: what technology was used to ship it, and what management style keeps the delivery moving toward you. Machines and humans are working together to get that practice down to a science, and, according to Mims, it's only just getting started.
Communication around elections has changed a lot in the last 25 years—the last time comprehensive internet regulations were passed. That's why Facebook supports updated internet regulations—like the DETER Act, to help protect election integrity against foreign interference.
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