Photo: Frances Haugen
Facebook’s whistleblower speaks

Good morning! This Monday, Facebook is in crisis mode, Rivian is set to IPO, and Trump wants his Twitter account back.
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Frances Haugen is the source behind the Facebook Files. Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic integrity team, went on "60 Minutes" to reveal herself as the whistleblower, and talk about what she saw during her time at the company.
Facebook tried to front-run the TV segment through a Workplace post from Nick Clegg. (Workplace, where Haugen found much of her information, is an increasingly central character in this story.) Clegg's note was framed as: "Here's what to tell your friends and family about why you work at Facebook." Let's just say, if you're ever in the position of having to help your team do that, you're … not doing so hot. And Facebook's case for Facebook, as usual, is that Facebook's trying very hard and also isn't nearly as important as people say.
But Facebook is now in full-on crisis mode. The Facebook Files are shaping up to be the biggest problem for Facebook's public image since the height of the Cambridge Analytica days. (And given the near-constant run of scandals since then, that's a pretty high bar to clear.) Cambridge Analytica was an ultimately fairly minor thing, and yet it still haunts both Facebook and the tech industry as a whole. This one might be even bigger.
There's a core disconnect within Facebook: The company seems either unwilling or unable (or both) to understand just how influential it really is. And even if it's true that most teens have positive experiences on Instagram, even if it's true that Facebook takes down millions of pieces of problematic content before users even notice, even if it's true that Facebook invests far more than its competitors in content moderation, there are still going to be vast numbers of users who experience the platform in all the wrong ways.
This is all still just getting started. Facebook is under antitrust scrutiny, faces lawsuits from a number of states, is picking (and losing) a privacy fight with Apple, is being investigated in the EU for multiple reasons and is under genuine threat from TikTok and elsewhere. Facebook has weathered a lot in the last few years, but this is starting to feel like a whole different kind of storm.
We've invested $13 billion in teams and technology over the last 5 years to enhance safety.It's working: In just the past few months, we took down 1.7 billion fake accounts to stop bad actors from doing harm. But there's more to do. We're working to help you connect safely.
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Car companies shouldn't just point fingers at TSMC for the chip shortage, chair Mark Liu said:
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GeekWire Summit begins today. Andy Jassy is expected to speak at the two-day event, which will be held via livestream and at a venue in downtown Seattle.
Frances Haugen will testify before the Senate tomorrow.
VMworld starts tomorrow. The global online event will cover topics like multicloud and app modernization, and includes a conversation with, err, Will Smith.
Windows 11 comes out tomorrow. The update will feature some cosmetic changes and a new Microsoft Store, among other things.
Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) will be released on Friday. It'll have a larger OLED screen and a lot of internal storage.
Microsoft Teams wants to be better than Zoom, so it's adding a bunch of new features like the ability to transfer calls and detect spam. The thing is, Zoom already has these tools (although its spam tool is still in beta), so Microsoft added something you can't get on Zoom: a walkie-talkie.
To talk, you just push a button, like push-to-talk, but for the digital age. It's a little less coordinated than a Slack Huddle or Zoom call, given that you can talk to someone without notice. So it'll be fun to see how that plays out with your colleagues!
It's working: We lead the industry in stopping bad actors online. In the past few months, we took down:
Our work to reduce harmful content is never done. We're making our platforms safer.
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