Bradley C Hughes retweetledi
SHE DOCUMENTED ELECTION FRAUD IN 25 COUNTRIES
Sophie Zhang @szhang_ds was a low-level data scientist at Facebook @Meta. Her actual job was removing fake likes and bot accounts. Routine stuff.
Except she kept finding something much worse.
From 2018 to 2020, she uncovered political manipulation and opposition harassment networks across 25 countries.
Governments using fake accounts to drown out critics. Politicians manufacturing fake approval. Real elections. Fake numbers. Real consequences.
Honduras. Azerbaijan. India. Ukraine. Spain. Brazil. Bolivia. Ecuador. And more.
She documented all of it. She raised it internally. She pushed. She escalated.
Facebook's response?
Everyone agreed it was terrible. Nobody could agree who should be responsible, or even what should be done.
She was fired in September 2020. Then she was offered a $64,000 severance package tied to a non-disparagement agreement. She turned it down.
On her last day, she posted a 7,800-word memo on the internal message board. It was later leaked to BuzzFeed @BuzzFeedNews.
The world finally read what Facebook had been sitting on for years.
Facebook's priority, she wrote, was PR. Issues got bumped up the queue when someone threatened to go to the press.
Not because they were serious. Because they were embarrassing.
She testified before the British Parliament in October 2021. She shared documents with US law enforcement. She said she has blood on her hands. She meant it literally.
Countries she chose not to prioritise later descended into civil unrest.
One data scientist. Holding back election interference across half the planet in her spare time while her employer calculated the reputational math.
The platform that connects the world couldn't connect the dots. Or wouldn't.
Sources: BuzzFeed News @BuzzFeedNews, September 2020 | The Guardian @guardian, April 2021 | MIT Technology Review @techreview, July 2021
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