{"id":504918,"date":"2021-05-13T16:21:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T20:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=504918"},"modified":"2021-05-13T16:21:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T20:21:06","slug":"i-have-blood-on-my-hands-after-being-fired-whistleblower-alleges-foreign-governments-abuse-of-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-have-blood-on-my-hands-after-being-fired-whistleblower-alleges-foreign-governments-abuse-of-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I Have Blood On My Hands\u2019: After Being Fired, \u2018Whistleblower\u2019 Alleges Foreign Governments\u2019 Abuse Of Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fi-have-blood-on-my-hands-after-being-fired-whistleblower-alleges-foreign-governments-abuse-of-facebook%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=504918&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-144147598-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p><span>A disgruntled employee who was fired for poor performance released a long memo in September 2020 blasting Facebook for ignoring political manipulation by foreign entities on the platform, allegations which have been embraced by Leftist outlets as alleged evidence of Facebook\u2019s culpability when it comes to unfavorable political victories \u2014 such as Trump\u2019s election win in 2016. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Excerpts of the memo were published in a long profile by The Guardian on Monday titled, \u201cThe Facebook loophole: How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower\u2019s account.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOfficially, I\u2019m a low-level [data scientist] who\u2019s being fired today for poor performance,\u201d the 2020 memo began, according to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/craigsilverman\/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo\"><span>Buzzfeed News<\/span><\/a><span>. \u201cIn practice, in the 2.5 years I\u2019ve spent at Facebook, I\u2019ve \u2026 found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions,\u201d wrote Sophie Zhang in an internal Facebook post for outgoing employees known as a \u201cbadge post.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><span>Over the course of 7,800 scathing words, Zhang outlined Facebook\u2019s failure to combat political manipulation campaigns akin to what Russia had done in the 2016 US election,\u201d reported the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/apr\/12\/facebook-fake-engagement-whistleblower-sophie-zhang\"><span>Guardian<\/span><\/a><span>. Zhang then said that Facebook \u201cdidn\u2019t care enough to stop them,\u201d and that \u201cI know that I have blood on my hands by now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>On Monday, the Guardian interviewed Zhang, with the former Facebook employee speaking as a supposed \u201cwhistleblower.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cNow, with the US election over and a new president inaugurated, Zhang is coming forward to tell the whole story on the record,\u201d wrote the Guardian.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhat we have seen is that multiple national presidents believe that this activity is sufficiently valuable for their autocratic ambitions that they feel the need to do it so blatantly that they aren\u2019t even bothering to hide,\u201d Zhang said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>According to the Guardian report, Zhang argued that \u201cFacebook is allowing its self-interest to interfere with its responsibility to protect democracy, and that the public and regulators need to know what is happening to provide oversight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe whole point of inauthentic activity is not to be found,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix something unless you know that it exists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A Facebook spokesperson rejected Zhang\u2019s claims, saying, \u201cWe fundamentally disagree with Ms. Zhang\u2019s characterization of our priorities and efforts to root out abuse on our platform.\u00a0<\/span><span>We aggressively go after abuse around the world and have specialized teams focused on this work. As a result, we\u2019ve taken down more than 100 networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior. Around half of them were domestic networks that operated in countries around the world, including those in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and in the Asia Pacific region. Combatting coordinated inauthentic behavior is our priority. We\u2019re also addressing the problems of spam and fake engagement. We investigate each issue before taking action or making public claims about them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ighaworth\"><i><span>@ighaworth<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"> <i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A disgruntled employee who was fired for poor performance released a long memo in September 2020 blasting Facebook for ignoring political manipulation by foreign entities on the platform, allegations which &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2278091,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-144147598-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018I Have Blood On My Hands\u2019: After Being Fired, \u2018Whistleblower\u2019 Alleges Foreign Governments\u2019 Abuse Of Facebook","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-144147598-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018I Have Blood On My Hands\u2019: After Being Fired, \u2018Whistleblower\u2019 Alleges Foreign Governments\u2019 Abuse Of Facebook","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2278091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}