INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS AWARD A Book of the
Year: Fortune Foreign Affairs The Times (London) Cosmopolitan TechCrunch WIRED ?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 readers 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 coopted by hate-mongers
criminals and corrupt political regimes across the globe with devastating consequences. In An
Ugly Truth they are at last held accountable.
