Sophie Zhang (whistleblower)

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Sophie Zhang
Born
Ann Arbor, Michigan[1]
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
OccupationData-analyst
Employer
Known forRevealing details of Facebook superficial monitoring of online political manipulations

Sophie Zhang is a data scientist and whistleblower who formerly worked at Facebook.[2][3] From 2018 to 2020, while she was investigating "fake engagement" at Facebook, she uncovered abusive political manipulation and opposition harassment networks in 25 countries.[4] Zhang reported that most of these subversive networks use Facebook's organization pages, configured with human names and photographs to mimic human accounts,[4] in order to successfully evade Facebook's emerging efforts to counter fake users.[4] The British newspaper, The Guardian, dedicated a series, The Facebook Loophole, based on Zhang's resources and accounts, to report on these Facebook-based political manipulations.[5]

Career[]

Sophie Zhang worked at Facebook for two years as a data scientist, until September 2020.[4] She was in the "Fake Engagement" team, a sub-division of the "Spam team" assigned to look for abuses of the platform.[4] Zhang investigated “fake engagement” such as inauthentic likes, comments, shares, and reactions.[4] No Facebook team is dedicated to investigate and root out fake or abusive organization pages.[4]

Unveiled governmental abuses[]

She found series of "multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, [which] caused international news on multiple occasions".[4] Most notably, these included:

  • Honduras, 2018:[6] President Juan Orlando Hernández - From June to July 2018, 78% of Hernández’s Facebook posts received likes that were not from real people, artificially boosting his apparent popular support by a factor of five.[4] The social manager of Hernández's official Facebook pages, for both Hernández and his late sister who had served as communications minister, was directly controlling several hundreds of fake entities.[4] This campaign used Facebook's Organization Pages, configured with human names and photographs, to add support and to lure unaware readers.[4]
  • Azerbaijan, 2019:[7] Zhang found the ruling party to be using thousands of Organization Pages to harass opposition parties.[2] The network of pages was still active as of June, 2021.[1]
  • India,[8] USA,[9] Dominican Republic,[10] Mexico,[9] Honduras,[9] El Salvador,[10] Ecuador,[9] Bolivia,[9] Paraguay,[9] Argentina,[9] Italy,[9] Poland,[9] Ukraine,[9] Albania,[9] Bulgaria,[9] Turkey,[9] Iraq,[9] Tunisia,[9] Afghanistan,[10] Mongolia,[9] India,[9] Myanmar, Indonesia,[9] Philippines,[9] South Korea[9] and more.

Departure from Facebook[]

Zhang was fired from Facebook in September 2020. She declined a $64,000 severance package attached to a non-disparagement agreement restricting her ability to speak publicly about Facebook issues.[10] On her departure day, she posted a 7,800-word departure message to Facebook's internal message board outlining Facebook’s failure to combat political manipulation campaigns similar to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[4] Anticipating Facebook's deletion of the post, she created a personal, password-protected website with a copy of the post, then distributed its web address and password to Facebook co-workers.[4] Facebook suppressed the message on the internal board, then contacted Zhang's web hosting service and domain registrar to request and force her private website offline.[4]

Facebook criticisms[]

Zhang pointed out several shortcomings in Facebook's management of such unauthentic political engagement on its services.

  • Facebook priority assessment.[10] Structure and effort investments focuses on “large-scale” issues (ex: spam) rather that specific uncivic and political cases.[10] Issues are prioritized by volume, so outright political manipulations in smaller countries are discounted despite their real impact.[10] Zhang reported that 99% of resources are dedicated to fight spams.[11] Expansion to fight political and election manipulations was rejected due to limitation of human resources.[11]
  • Facebook has an "enforcement gap",[2] with a dedicated team fighting fake accounts, but no team fighting fake organizations that can work like and mimic user accounts.[2]
  • Facebook minimized bottom-up alerts by on-the-ground data analysts.[10]
  • Facebook investment priorities and associated internal workload makes impossible to properly manage political manipulations.[10]
  • Facebook decision process generally are slapdash and haphazard,[12] despite its effort to project itself as a fully competent entity.[12]
  • Facebook has a Western-centric focus.[10] Western occurrences of political manipulations are dealt with rapidly, while responses to occurrences in other countries are delayed or not responded to at all.[10]
  • Facebook waits for and reacts to media coverage in a public relationship management approach.[10] Facebook management has used negative media coverage to assess priorities, arguing that no previous media coverage means no relative importance of an issue.[10]
  • Facebook acts with no public oversights.[12][10] Low-level data analysts have control and censorship power over world leaders [10][12] and public discourses, with the capacity to let political manipulation continue or to stop it.[10] While at Facebook, Zhang had monitored and personally taken or not taken action in countless countries, some of which have been shaken by civil unrest.[12] Zhang declared she therefore has "blood on [her] hands".[10]

Zhang argues that Facebook is not acting out of malice, but rather is slapdash, haphazard,[12] and concerned with self preservation and public relations.[10]

Personal life[]

Zhang is a transgender woman, and as she related, «she is tired of being in the closet as a transgender woman» and claims that is a core aspect of her identity that informed her actions at Facebook and after she left.[13]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Hao, Karen (2021-07-29). "She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she's telling her story". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Ex-Facebook employee on the company's dangerous loophole: 'Autocrats don't bother to hide', retrieved 2021-04-15
  3. ^ "Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens". the Guardian. 2021-04-12. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wong, Julia Carrie (2021-04-12). "How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower's account". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  5. ^ "The Facebook loophole | Technology | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  6. ^ "Facebook knew of Honduran president's manipulation campaign – and let it continue for 11 months". the Guardian. 2021-04-13. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  7. ^ "'Facebook isn't interested in countries like ours': Azerbaijan troll network returns months after ban". the Guardian. 2021-04-13. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  8. ^ "Facebook planned to remove fake accounts in India – until it realized a BJP politician was involved". the Guardian. 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Wong, Julia Carrie (2021-04-12). "How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower's account : Map". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Statt, Nick (2020-09-14). "Facebook ignored blatant political manipulation around the world, claims former data scientist". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b ""I Have Blood On My Hands": A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo". BBC News. 2020-09-15. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  13. ^ "She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she's telling her story". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2021-08-09.

See also[]

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