An Ugly Truth

Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination

By: Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang

Narrated by: Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang, Holter Graham

“The ultimate takedown.” (New York Times Book Review)

Award-winning New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang unveil the tech story of our times in a riveting, behind-the-scenes exposé that offers the definitive account of Facebook’s fall from grace.

Once one of Silicon Valley’s greatest success stories, Facebook has been under constant fire for the past five years, roiled by controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users’ data, spreading fake news, and amplifying dangerous, polarizing hate speech.

The company, many said, had simply lost its way. But the truth is far more complex. Leadership decisions enabled, and then attempted to deflect attention from, the crises. Time after time, Facebook’s engineers were instructed to create tools that encouraged people to spend as much time on the platform as possible, even as those same tools boosted inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and partisan filter bubbles. And while consumers and lawmakers focused their outrage on privacy breaches and misinformation, Facebook solidified its role as the world’s most voracious data-mining machine, posting record profits and shoring up its dominance via aggressive lobbying efforts.

Drawing on their unrivaled sources, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang take listeners inside the complex court politics, alliances, and rivalries within the company to shine a light on the fatal cracks in the architecture of the tech behemoth. Their explosive, exclusive reporting led them to a shocking conclusion: The missteps of the last five years were not an anomaly, but an inevitability - this is how Facebook was built to perform. In a period of great upheaval, growth has remained the one constant under the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Both have been held up as archetypes of uniquely 21st-century executives - he the tech “boy genius” turned billionaire, she the ultimate woman in business, an inspiration to millions through her books and speeches. But sealed off in tight circles of advisers and hobbled by their own ambition and hubris, each has stood by as their technology is co-opted by hate-mongers, criminals, and corrupt political regimes across the globe, with devastating consequences. In An Ugly Truth, they are at last held accountable.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

©2020 Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

hearsay

if you enjoy mainstream media, you will enjoy this book. it is definitely an ecochamber.

Great book. I have listened to other books regarding the same topic and it clearly align with the others in the majority of the

This is a great book. I've seen some other reviews that mark the book as just one star overall and then point to the idea that the book clearly has an agenda against X o Y thing. Which makes the book even more valid as this is one of the top topics discussed in the book, how facebook led a lot of things happen and was an enabler of false information, and only acted when their (facebook's) Zuckenberg, and Cherryl Sandberg's reputation was againsy the wall. Read/listen to it, draw your own conclusions.

Thoroughly researched and very engaging

These journalists spent 1000’s of hours researching to get an inside glimpse of Facebooks quest to dominate. The chapters are interesting and shocking at times. The narrator is great. If you’re interested to learn more about the inner workings of a big and dangerous company, I highly recommend listening!

eye opener

This book should be read by all policymakers in Washington. People need to understand Facebook's manipulation of its users.

You may know much of the story if you read

I found a lot of the book to repeat a lot of what i already knew. It is very detailed. Maybe just too much for me.
The most important part of the book reminds me that you get nothing for free.
Share all that you want at a price - and greedy technologies types raking in the
$$$$$$$$$$ based using our ignorance.
They love to feed ‘angry’, so remember Facebook has decided to control out country and other countries. If Facebook was a person, we would call him/it/her a demigod/dictatorship.

Insightful story

Interesting chronological description of the FB drama but almost nothing new. 10% of the Book was exciting on how Mark thinks and what drives him, I wanted more. I still highly recommend it, entertaining listening while driving!

Very thorough, a must read

The truth is ugly indeed. The villain is confused, lost, but extremely powerful and wants to keep power at any cost. The cost is people lives, democracies and more. Kudos to the writers on doing an incredible job. Very thorough.

A solid look behind the curtain

Not just another anti Facebook tome. It was a well documented chronology from inception to Jan. 6 surfacing and going deep on the root causes for the organization’s deep distinction.

an ok book but not for me.

mehhh. a tad boring. facebook is what you make of it. their influence weakens if you just ignore them.

Buy

this book America! Then get off all Social Media Outlets and get a life. Start some friendships face to face, in the presence of your family, friends and neighbors!