FB data analyst denounces manipulation of information

Sophie Zhang worked for three years as a Facebook data analyst, until she was laid off in 2020. On her last day, she posted a 7,800-word report on the company's internal forum, a common occurrence—though not its length—when a employee leaves. In the report, first brought to light by Buzzfeed, she presented evidence that governments such as Azerbaijan and Honduras used fake accounts to influence public opinion. And in nations like Ecuador and India, Zhang found signs of coordinated activities designed to manipulate public opinion, though it was not clear who was behind them. Facebook, she claimed, did not take her findings seriously.

The lived experience made Zhang reach a drastic conclusion: "I have blood on my hands."

Facebook does not dispute the facts mentioned in Zhang's report, but downplays her conclusions.

"We have serious differences with Ms. Zhang's description of our priorities and our efforts to eliminate abuse from our platform," she said in a Facebook statement. “As part of our battle against this type of abuse, we have specialized teams focused on this work and have taken down more than 150 networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior. About half of them were home networks operating in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Asia Pacific region.

QUESTION: Why were you fired by Facebook?

ANSWER: I am talked about because of the work I did to protect elections. It seemed like a very important thing, but on Facebook she was a low-level employee. And that was not my official task. She did it in my spare time, with the knowledge and approval of the bosses, of course. At first the company supported this initiative. Preo gradually lost patience with me. I wasn't giving up.

Q: In her report it says that she has blood on her hands. Why do you say that?

A: Whether or not they did something depended on how much I insisted, how much noise I made.

I know that they made many decisions that were felt in the countries where they worked. The United States is very affected by what happened in 2016 with the Russian manipulation through Facebook. For countries like Honduras or Azerbaijan, this is their Russia. But it is not done by another power, but by its own government. And without even trying to hide it.

I did what I could from the information I had. But I am just one person. Sometimes I waited longer than I should. With this level of responsibility, you give your best, but sometimes that's not enough.

Q: How did you start doing this work?

A: When I joined the company, like so many people, I was very affected by Russia in 2016. I decided to look for links between inauthentic activities and political targets. And I started to find results in many places, especially in what we call the global south, in Honduras, Brazil and India.

Honduras caught my eye because it had a high amount (of inauthentic behavior) compared to the others. I understood that it was a very unsophisticated activity. Bots, literally. And I realized that it was basically a “troll farm” openly run by an employee of the Honduran presidency. And it seemed horrible to me.

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Q: What did you do?

A: I talked about it internally. Basically everyone admitted that it was a bad thing. Nobody wants to defend this type of activity, but people did not agree on who had to deal with it.

I desperately tried to find someone who would be interested. I talked to my boss and his boss. I spoke with those in charge of intelligence. With many teams committed to integrity. It took me a year to make anything happen.

Q: You say that there is a list of priority countries. What about the countries that are not on that list?

A: There is no fixed rule. Facebook intervenes in small countries. But in general it does so in reaction to complaints from outside: Information from opposition groups, NGOs, journalistic investigations, CIA reports, etc. However, in these cases no one from the outside complained.

Q: Given the resources that Facebook has, why can't it prioritize all countries?

A: For one, these things take time. But I suspect that if they really believed it was important, they would have taken steps that they haven't. The integrity teams would have been better prepared. And they certainly wouldn't have fired me.

Q: Do people who follow on Facebook try to correct this?

A: Like everyone, they are ordinary people, who want a job from 9 to 6 and at the end of the day they want to go home and sleep well.

Also, there is a natural selection. If you think Facebook is evil, you're not going to work there.

Although there are many people who want to improve things. I was clear when I joined Facebook. I don't think Facebook helps create a better world. And I told them I wanted to change that.

Q: Who does the work that you did?

A: I don't know. I was the only one trying to spot these behaviors on my own, not waiting for someone to tell us what was going on. And the reason I spotted so many things so easily is that they're right there in plain sight.

Q: Facebook says it's removing a lot of inauthentic accounts and tried to downplay your claims.

A: It's a typical response from Facebook. Actually, they are not answering the question. Suppose his wife says to him, "Did you do the dishes yesterday?" and you reply, “I gave priority to the dishes. I wanted to make sure they're clean. I don't want there to be dirty dishes." It's an answer that makes sense, but doesn't really answer anything.