... better sourced than all of its predecessors in the genre ... The co-authors’ exhumation of these ghastly skeletons makes for gripping as well as depressing reading ... splendid.
This is a book intended to make you outraged at Facebook. But if you’ve read anything about the company in recent years, you probably already are. Frenkel and Kang faced the challenge of unearthing new and interesting material about one of the most heavily debated communication tools of our modern age. More than 400 interviews later, they’ve produced the ultimate takedown via careful, comprehensive interrogation of every major Facebook scandal. An Ugly Truth provides the kind of satisfaction you might get if you hired a private investigator to track a cheating spouse: It confirms your worst suspicions and then gives you all the dates and details you need to cut through the company’s spin ... Frenkel and Kang’s addition to this overstuffed genre revisits all of the company’s known missteps; at times, reading it felt like a reprise of the greatest hits in Facebook journalism. But by weaving all those threads together, and adding new reporting from high-level meetings in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., the authors manage to effectively examine the shortcomings in the company’s leadership, structure and accountability. The book connects the internal drama and decision-making at Facebook with what we have all experienced on the outside ... Facebook employees have told me they’re nervous about the book’s release, and for good reason. Frenkel and Kang expose the dysfunction of its top ranks, revealing tensions between Zuckerberg and Sandberg.
The book is not the first to tackle these issues, but it adds a trove of rich detail that will be important in the ongoing assessment of social media’s impact on society and democracy ... The heart of the book, and its most compelling parts, involve the company’s discovery of Russian-generated disinformation on the platform during the 2016 election and the security team’s frustrated efforts to get their findings in front of Zuckerberg and Sandberg ... The drama between Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters and its Washington office will make the book fascinating for followers of tech policy.
An Ugly Truth is the result of fifteen years of reporting. Frenkel and Kang, award-winning journalists for the Times, conducted interviews with more than four hundred people, mostly Facebook employees, past and present, for more than a thousand hours. Many people who spoke with them were violating nondisclosure agreements ... An Ugly Truth is a work of muckraking ...
... a decent stab at being the definitive history of Facebook to date ... It makes for a good read, even if some passages do read as though they have passed through more lawyers than a glass of London tap water has through people ... There is something fascinating in looking back at these early misadventures with data, not only because they set the tone for what was to follow, but also because they show just how clueless even the tech illuminati were about exactly what people would stand for ... [the] Russia chapter is one of the most granular in the book, yet it remains quite hard to comprehend exactly what happened ... I could also have done with a bit more analysis of what, in the end, it has all been for. This export of mania, this breaking of the world, this exponential amplification of everything bad about all of us. Why this hunger to connect, to soak up data, to dominate, when every bit of the wealth and power to which it leads seems to hold no interest for him?
An Ugly Truth, the devastating profile of Facebook by New York Times writers Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, will not be this summer’s comfort read, but it may well be its most compelling ... [an] engagingly eviscerating page-turner ... a sort of Greatest Hits collection in terms of scandals and destructive decision-making ... It’s painful, fascinating reading ... This well-written book offers important insights into how this usually inscrutable company, with its dauntingly powerful position in society, has become a social media mammoth with the ability to rattle, if not break, democracies ... a big thumbs-up.
... at pains to unearth original—frequently fascinating—material that I suspect the PR departments of Facebook and Amazon would have preferred to remain hidden. As such it complements Brad Stone’s Amazon Unbound, published earlier this year, in illustrating how the law and, in some cases, popularly accepted economic doctrine has failed to keep pace with the tech companies ... [an] absorbing book ... the authors portray a company whose engineers and employees have been engaged in continuous rearguard actions rather than devoting energy to the activities that make life stimulating—fresh products, bold ideas and a zesty essence.
... makes a decent stab at being the definitive history of Facebook to date ... makes for a good read, even if some passages do read as though they have passed through more lawyers than a glass of London tap water has through people ... There is something fascinating in looking back at these early misadventures with data, not only because they set the tone for what was to follow, but also because they show just how clueless even the tech illuminati were about exactly what people would stand for ... The Facebook story of course isn’t over, which makes this thoroughly engaging book end a little unsatisfyingly ... I could also have done with a bit more analysis of what, in the end, it has all been for. This export of mania, this breaking of the world, this exponential amplification of everything bad about all of us. Why this hunger to connect, to soak up data, to dominate, when every bit of the wealth and power to which it leads seems to hold no interest for him?
... a paragon of investigative journalism ... Compiling interviews with former and current employees as well as investors, regulators, and lawmakers, the authors offer an unvarnished view of the company’s callous business practices ... though CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg refused to be interviewed, both come vividly to life, the latter a 'master manager' and advertising guru, the former an operator who’s affable in public and ruthless behind the scenes. The result is a work of impeccable research and relentless reporting.
