Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist at Facebook, revealed that it
enables global political manipulation and has done little to stop it.
The world first learned of Sophie Zhang in September 2020, when BuzzFeed News obtained and published highlights from an abridged version of her nearly 8,000-word exit memo from Facebook.
On the eve of her departure, Zhang was still debating whether to write the memo at all.
"For the countless press interviews she's done since leaving Facebook, we have fundamentally disagreed with Ms. Zhang's characterization of our priorities and efforts to root out abuse on our platform," he said.
Half a year in, Zhang intuited that politicians could do the same things to increase their influence and reach on the platform.
"No one could agree who should be responsible, or even what should be done." After Zhang applied pressure for a year, the network of fake pages was finally removed.
Only a few weeks earlier, Zhang had indeed deprioritized the country to take care of what seemed like more urgent cases.
Whereas someone else might have chosen to leave such a taxing job or perhaps absolve herself of responsibility as a means of coping, Zhang leaned in, at great personal cost, in an attempt to singlehandedly right a wrong.
"To give up on them and abandon them would be a betrayal of the very core of my identity." It was during the start of her physical and mental decline in the fall of 2019 that Zhang began thinking about whether to come forward.
Without a team assigned to continue her work, Zhang kept doing some in secret.
Even after all that Facebook put her through, Zhang defaults to blaming herself.
Zhang points to other evidence: the network of fake pages in Azerbaijan is still there.
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