Internal Facebook documents shed light on insurrection actions

By Donie O’Sullivan, Tara Subramaniam and Clare Duffy | CNN

Just days aft insurrectionists stormed the Capitol connected January 6th, Facebook’s Chief Operational Officer Sheryl Sandberg downplayed her company’s relation successful what had happened.

“We cognize this was organized online. We cognize that,” she said successful an interrogation with Reuters. “We… took down QAnon, Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, thing that was talking astir imaginable unit past week. Our enforcement’s ne'er cleanable truthful I’m definite determination were inactive things connected Facebook. I deliberation these events were mostly organized connected platforms that don’t person our abilities to halt hatred and don’t person our standards and don’t person our transparency.”

But interior Facebook documents reviewed by CNN suggest otherwise. The documents, including an interior post-mortem and 1 papers showing successful existent clip countermeasures Facebook employees were belatedly implementing, overgarment a representation of a institution that was successful information fundamentally unprepared for however the Stop the Steal question utilized its level to organize, and that lone genuinely swung into enactment aft the question had turned violent.

Asked by CNN astir Sandberg’s punctuation and whether she stood by it, a Facebook spokesperson pointed to the greater discourse astir Sandberg’s quote. She had been noting that Jan. 6 enactment happened mostly online, including but not constricted to connected Facebook’s platforms, the spokesperson said.

The documents were provided by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen arsenic grounds to enactment disclosures she made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress successful redacted signifier by Haugen’s ineligible counsel. The redacted versions were obtained by a consortium of 17 US quality organizations, including CNN.

One of Haugen’s cardinal allegations astir the institution focuses connected the onslaught connected the Capitol. In a SEC disclosure she alleges, “Facebook misled investors and the nationalist astir its relation perpetuating misinformation and convulsive extremism relating to the 2020 predetermination and January 6th insurrection.”

Facebook denies the premise of Haugen’s conclusions and says Haugen has cherry-picked documents to contiguous an unfair portrayal of the company.

“The work for the unit that occurred connected January 6 lies with those who attacked our Capitol and those who encouraged them. We took steps to bounds contented that sought to delegitimize the election, including labeling candidates’ posts with the latest ballot number aft Mr. Trump prematurely declared victory, pausing caller governmental advertizing and removing the archetypal #StopTheSteal Group successful November,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN Friday.

“After the unit astatine the Capitol erupted and arsenic we saw continued attempts to signifier events to quality the result of the statesmanlike election, we removed contented with the operation ‘stop the steal’ nether our Coordinating Harm argumentation and suspended Trump from our platform.”

“Our enforcement was piecemeal”

Among the tens of thousands of pages of documents Haugen provided is an interior investigation of however the Stop the Steal and Patriot Party movements dispersed connected Facebook, archetypal reported by BuzzFeed News earlier this year.

“Hindsight is 20:20,” the writer oregon authors of the analysis, who are not identifiable from what was provided, write. “[A]t the clip it was precise hard to cognize whether what we were seeing was a coordinated effort to delegitimize the election, oregon whether it was protected escaped look by users who were acrophobic and confused and deserved our empathy. But hindsight being 20:20 makes it each the much important to look backmost to larn what we tin astir the maturation of the predetermination delegitimatizing movements that grew, dispersed conspiracy, and helped incite the Capitol insurrection.”

The investigation recovered that the policies and procedures Facebook had successful spot were simply not up to the task of slowing, overmuch little halting, the “meteoric” maturation of Stop the Steal. For instance, those down the investigation noted that Facebook treated each portion of contented and idiosyncratic oregon radical wrong Stop the Steal individually, alternatively than arsenic portion of a whole, with dire results.

“Almost each of the fastest increasing FB Groups were Stop the Steal during their highest growth,” the investigation says. “Because we were looking astatine each entity individually, alternatively than arsenic a cohesive movement, we were lone capable to instrumentality down idiosyncratic Groups and Pages erstwhile they exceeded a usurpation threshold. We were not capable to enactment connected elemental objects similar posts and comments due to the fact that they individually tended not to violate, adjacent if they were surrounded by hate, violence, and misinformation.”

This attack did yet change, according to the investigation — aft it was excessively late.

“After the Capitol insurrection and a question of Storm the Capitol events crossed the country, we realized that the idiosyncratic delegitimizing Groups, Pages, and slogans did represent a cohesive movement,” the investigation says.

This was not the lone mode successful which Facebook had failed to expect thing similar Stop the Steal, oregon successful which its effect was lacking.

Facebook has for immoderate clip present had a argumentation banning “coordinated inauthentic behavior” connected its platforms. This prohibition allows it to instrumentality enactment against, for instance, the Russian troll service that worked to interfere with the 2016 US predetermination done accounts and pages acceptable up to look arsenic if they were American But, the investigation notes with emphasis, the institution had “little argumentation astir coordinated authentic harm” — that is, small to halt radical organizing nether their existent names and not hiding their volition to get the state to cull the results of the election.

Stop the Steal and Patriot Party groups “were not straight mobilizing offline harm, nor were they straight promoting militarization,” the investigation says. “Instead, they were amplifying and normalizing misinformation and convulsive hatred successful a mode that delegitimized a escaped and just antiauthoritarian election. The harm existed astatine the web level: an individual’s code is protected, but arsenic a movement, it normalized delegitimization and hatred successful a mode that resulted successful offline harm and harm to the norms underpinning democracy.”

The investigation does note, however, that erstwhile Facebook saw the results of Stop the Steal connected January 6th and took action, it was capable to deploy measures that stymied the maturation of some Stop the Steal and Patriot Party groups.

Facebook’s Stone told CNN, “Facebook has taken bonzer steps to code harmful contented and we’ll proceed to bash our part. We besides intimately worked with instrumentality enforcement, some earlier January 6th and successful the days and weeks since, with the extremity of ensuring that accusation linking the radical liable for January 6th to their crimes is available.”

Pulling levers

Haugen began gathering grounds astir the institution earlier she yet near the tech elephantine past May. To trim the accidental of getting caught taking screenshots of interior Facebook systems, she utilized her telephone to instrumentality photographs of her machine screen.

As the insurrection was underway successful Washington and Facebook was trying to get a grip connected the situation, Haugen was snapping pictures, documenting the company’s response.

One of the documents she captured, titled “Capitol Protest BTG [Break the Glass] Response,” was a illustration of measures Facebook could instrumentality successful effect to the January 6th attack. The illustration appears to person been prepared beforehand; astatine the clip Haugen photographed it, a small little than 2 hours aft the Capitol was archetypal breached, the institution had instituted immoderate of those measures portion others were inactive nether consideration. Among the imaginable actions listed successful the illustration were demoting “content deemed apt to interruption our assemblage standards successful the areas of hatred speech, graphic violence, and unit and incitement.”

The leafage labeled these arsenic “US2020 Levers, antecedently rolled back.”

Those “levers,” arsenic Facebook refers to them, are measures — guardrails — that the institution enactment successful spot earlier past year’s Presidential predetermination successful an effort to dilatory the dispersed of hatred and misinformation connected the platform. Facebook has not been wide successful its nationalist statements astir what measures it did rotation backmost aft the predetermination and wherefore it did truthful astatine a clip of tumult erstwhile the sitting president was calling the results of the ballot into question.

But according to the “Capitol Protest BTG response” document, the guardrails Facebook reimplemented connected January 6th included reducing the visibility of posts apt to beryllium reported and freezing “commenting connected posts successful Groups that commencement to person a precocious complaint of hatred code and unit & incitement comments,” among others.

In the SEC disclosure, Haugen alleges that these levers were reinstated “only aft the insurrection flared up.”

Asked astir the decisions to dial the levers backmost and past propulsion them retired again, Stone said, “In phasing successful and past adjusting further measures before, during and aft the election, we took into relationship circumstantial on-platforms signals and accusation from our ongoing, regular engagement with instrumentality enforcement. When those signals changed, truthful did the measures.”

A done line

When Facebook executives posted messages publically and internally condemning the riot, immoderate employees pushed back, adjacent suggesting Facebook mightiness person had immoderate culpability.

“There were dozens of Stop the Steal groups progressive up until yesterday, and I uncertainty they minced words astir their intentions,” 1 worker wrote successful effect to a station from Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s main exertion officer.3

Another wrote, “All owed respect, but haven’t we had capable clip to fig retired however to negociate sermon without enabling violence? We’ve been fueling this occurrence for a agelong clip and we shouldn’t beryllium amazed it’s present retired of control.”

Other Facebook employees went further, claiming decisions by institution enactment implicit the years had helped make the conditions that paved the mode for an onslaught connected the US Capitol.

Responding to Schroepfer’s post, 1 staffer wrote that, “leadership overrides probe based argumentation decisions to amended service radical similar the groups inciting unit today. Rank and record workers person done their portion to place changes to amended our platforms but person been actively held back.”

Another staffer, referencing years of arguable and questionable decision-making by Facebook enactment astir governmental code concluded, “history volition not justice america kindly.”