Facebook's 'Ugly Truth;' Biden's bookshelf; MSNBC's birthday; Stephen A. Smith's apology; a 'newsworthy' meme; Emmy nominations day; 'a go-to tactic to suppress dissent'

View this email in your browser.

Share it on Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe here.

Brian Stelter here at 10:48pm ET on Monday, July 12 with the latest on Disney, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Durbin, Stephen A. Smith, "Catch and Kill," Netflix, and a whole lot more...

Facebook's dichotomy

With scrutiny of Big Tech intensifying every single week, an ambitious new book is measuring Facebook's missteps and miseries. As the title indicates, it's not pretty:

"An Ugly Truth" is the name of the book, co-authored by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, both of whom report for the NYT. The book comes out on Tuesday. As I perused an early copy, I was struck by the vastness of the story. Facebook is, as Kang and Frenkel write, an "unstoppable profit-making machine," affecting all of Earth, from the US to Myanmar. The authors have produced a valuable record of what went wrong, when, where, why, specifically in the last five years.

"No Filter" author Sarah Frier, who was tasked with reviewing "An Ugly Truth" for The Times, says the book documents a clear pattern: "The social media behemoth does as little as possible to prevent disasters from happening, then feebly attempts to avoid blame and manage public appearances." That's why the back cover of the book cleverly lists the company's apologias over the years: "I'm sorry." "We need to do better." "We need to do a better job."

The authors conclude that "even if the company undergoes a radical transformation in the coming years, that change is unlikely to come from within." Why? Because "the algorithm that serves as Facebook's beating heart is too powerful and too lucrative. And the platform is built upon a fundamental, possibly irreconcilable dichotomy: its purported mission to advance society by connecting people while also profiting off them. It is Facebook's dilemma and its ugly truth."

Key quotes from the book

-- The narrative focuses on both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, as this excerpt in the NYT illustrates. Together, "they methodically built a business model that is unstoppable in its growth... and entirely deliberate in its design."

-- From the prologue: "Zuckerberg's three greatest fears, according to a former senior Facebook executive, were that the site would be hacked, that his employees would be physically hurt, and that regulators would one day break up his social network."

-- The first chapter opens with an engineer at Facebook abusing his access to users' private info to snoop on a woman who had ghosted him after one date. Numerous engineers were caught doing so with their work laptops -- and were fired. But "it was unknown how many others had gone undetected." The Telegraph has an extract from this chapter of the book...

-- Facebook security experts were alarmed about FB posts from "domestic extremists" in the run-up to January 6. Some FB execs "floated getting Zuckerberg to call Trump to find out what the president would say" at his rally. "They ultimately decided against the move, out of concern that the conversation would likely leak to the press. It could make Facebook complicit in whatever Trump did that day."

"The ultimate takedown"

"This is a book intended to make you outraged at Facebook," Frier wrote in her review. "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."

Facebook's response

When I told a company spokesperson that I was writing about the book's findings, I received this sharp-elbowed statement in response: "There have been 367 books published on Facebook, each claiming novel insight into how we operate. It seems this one is not only a rehash of history but relies on anecdotes supplied by mostly unnamed critics."

I can only think of a handful of books about Facebook, but that number, 367, is quite close to the number of sources Kang and Frenkel say they had...

About their access

In the preamble, the authors say they conducted more than 1,000 hours of interviews with execs, current and former employees, family members, friends, classmates, investors, advisers, and others. "While Zuckerberg and Sandberg initially told their communications staff that they wanted to make sure their perspectives were conveyed in this book, they refused repeated requests for interviews," the authors write. "On three occasions, Sandberg invited us to off-the-record conversations in Menlo Park and New York, with the promise that those conversations would lead to longer interviews for the record. When she learned about the critical nature of some of our reporting, she cut off direct communication. Apparently the unvarnished account of the Facebook story did not align with her vision of the company and her role as its second-in-command. Zuckerberg, we were told, had no interest in participating."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- WaPo reviewer Susan Benkelman says "the drama between Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters and its Washington office will make the book fascinating for followers of tech policy..." (WaPo)

-- Speaking of the platforms, Sacha Baron Cohen continued the #StopHateForProfit campaign on Monday by writing, "Facebook and Twitter are spreading racist attacks on these Black athletes. Online racism leads to real-world hate crimes. It's time to rid racism from your platforms once and for all!" (Twitter)

-- Kate Kaye reports that Facebook's "brand safety audit is postponed..." (Digiday)

-- "Ignoring false statements and stunts by politicians is working well so far," so "we're sticking with our new policy," Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn says... (Cleveland.com)

On Biden's bookshelf...

An eagle-eyed Twitter follower noticed a few books stacked behind President Biden in the Oval Office last week. Among them: BBC correspondent Nick Bryant's book "When America Stopped Being Great: A History of the Present." Bryant called it an "interesting moment as an author, when your book on America makes it into the Oval Office." Here's the WaPo review. The book is "a love letter that becomes a lament," Bryant told me. I can't make out the books at the top and bottom of his stack, but the others in between are his son Hunter's recent memoir "Beautiful Things" and Jonathan Alter's 2007 book about FDR's first hundred days, "The Defining Moment..."

>> On a related note, Barack Obama is out with his 11-book summer reading list and his 38-song summer playlist...

TUESDAY PLANNER

Emmy nominations are announced at 11:30am ET...

Biden delivers a speech on voting rights at the National Constitution Center in Philly...

New nonfiction releases include "Landslide;" "Frankly, We Did Win This Election;" "American Marxism;" "Awakening: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women's Rights;" and a collection of wisdom from the late John Lewis, "Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation..."

New videos, but not seen by all

"The day after Donald Trump said there was a 'lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people that walked down to the Capitol' on Jan. 6, the feds have released two more videos showing the pro-Trump mob attacking police officers at the Capitol," HuffPost's Ryan Reilly pointed out.

Yes, but...

Will Trump's base ever see the videos? This thread by disinfo researcher Kate Starbird was in my head all day. She described trying to explain to one of her older relatives that "yes, there WERE videos of ACTUAL violence on January 6." She said she showed "a few of them to my <loved one>. He was very, very confused and wondered why he couldn't find them on his TV."

I just want to underscore that last point: He wanted to know why he couldn't find them on "his TV." Folks who are hooked on the Fox-Newsmax-OAN view of the world simply do not see the daily drip, drip, drip of revelations about the Jan. 6 attack...

Rand Paul demands answers from NSA about Tucker

Oliver Darcy writes: "Rand Paul is demanding the NSA answer a list of questions related to Tucker Carlson's evidence-free claims that the NSA spied on him as part of a master plot to destroy his show. The contents of Paul's letter are not all that interesting. What is interesting, however, is how Republican lawmakers continue to take Carlson's claims more seriously — or at least they pretend to take them seriously — than Fox News execs who have not uttered a single word in support of their top star..."

Speaking of Fox...

-- Megan Garber has a must-read on the "manufactured America" of Carlson's Fox Nation show: "The setting helps hide the propaganda in plain sight," she says. "It takes the argument implied in most everything that Carlson broadcasts — they are coming for you — and recasts it as a natural outgrowth of rugged individualism." Read her analysis in full... (The Atlantic)

-- Erik Wemple lists Maria Bartiromo's "top 10 fails" while also pointing out Fox's hypocrisy: "We've heard complaints about how the mainstream media doesn't sufficiently press President Biden … And the same network permits Trump a platform to repeat his well-rehearsed myths without intervention." (WaPo)

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Philip Bump says that the "erosion of confidence in everything besides Trump" makes it easy for Trump supporters to continue embracing false claims... (WaPo)

-- "Conservative talk show host Larry Elder joined a growing field of Republican candidates in the California recall on Monday..." (Politico)

-- Tip of the hat to the Miami Herald staff: Right now they are juggling Haiti, Cuba, and the Surfside collapse... (Herald)

A "newsworthy" meme

A First Amendment victory for Trump: "A New York judge has just dismissed a privacy lawsuit against him over the retweeting of a meme," THR's Eriq Gardner reports. "In what appears to be a first, the judge finds the meme to be 'newsworthy.'"

The meme was based on this wonderful and widely covered video of Black and White toddlers hugging:

...And naturally it was turned into a highly political meme by a Trump promoter on social media. "After Trump tweeted the video, which led Twitter to add a 'manipulated video' message, the parents of the toddlers filed suit," but the suit has been tossed out. The rationale is in Gardner's full story...

Durbin calls out "anti-vax quacks" on Fox

CNN congressional producer Ali Zaslav writes: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin on Monday read aloud from Tiffany Hsu's NYT story about Fox's anti-vax rhetoric and called out Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham as 'anti-vax quacks.' He strongly criticized them and others at the network for 'peddling nonsense about vaccines being unnecessary' as the country tries to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, noted that Rupert Murdoch received a vaccine very early on, and said he hopes Fox management will 'come to its senses' and 'caution' Carlson and Ingraham from spreading anti-vaccine messages..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- On the topic of anti-vax quacks: Newsmax host Rob Schmitt suggested that vaccines are "against nature" and appeared to argue some viruses are "supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people" as part of the evolutionary process... (MMFA)

-- Dr. Peter Hotez to Ana Cabrera, talking about this "heartbreaking" phase of the pandemic: At this point "basically everyone who dies from Covid-19 is a preventable death..." (CNN)

-- David Wallace-Wells' latest is on kids and Covid: "The country's whole risk profile has changed. But our intuitions about risk tolerance haven't — at least not yet..." (NYMag)

-- Among the new hires at The New Yorker: Parul Sehgal is joining as a staff writer and Kyle Chayka is joining as a contributing writer who "will write a column called Infinite Scroll on the people and platforms shaping Internet culture..." (Twitter)

-- Julián Castro has joined NBC News and MSNBC as a political analyst...

MSNBC's 25-year anniversary

The cable news channel is marking its 25th birthday all week long. (The anniversary of the launch is Thursday.) MSNBC Daily is running 25 days of forward-looking essays by MSNBC anchors, hosts and correspondents.

Cesar Conde and Rashida Jones were at the DC bureau for a champagne toast with the network's DC-based teams on Monday. "We've got a lot of work to do and a lot of exciting opportunities ahead," Jones said. Conde added, "As we celebrate this 25th year of MSNBC, I know we're going to have another great 25 years ahead of us..."

"A go-to tactic to suppress dissent"

"Cubans facing the country's worst economic crisis in decades took to the streets over the weekend. In turn, authorities blocked social media sites in an apparent effort to stop the flow of information into, out of and within the beleaguered nation," The AP's team reports. Their story points out that "restricting internet access has become a tried-and-true method of stifling dissent by authoritarian regimes..."

AP videojournalist assaulted in Cuba

Speaking of the news outlet, Oliver Darcy writes: "A journalist for the AP was assaulted while covering demonstrations in Cuba, the wire service reported Monday. According to the AP, photojournalist Ramón Espinosa had his camera smashed and was 'beaten by a group of police officers in uniforms and civilian clothes.' The AP said Espinosa 'suffered a broken nose and an eye injury...'"

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- While South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the country and called for calm amid days of violent protests and looting, some channels showed a split screen with looting happening live... (CNN)

-- "Dawit Isaak has been in prison longer than any other journalist in the world. Eritrea must let him go..." (WaPo)

-- Back stateside: "Among the few losers of Pennsylvania's most recent state budget, passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Tom Wolf last month, are Pennsylvania's public broadcasters," Stephen Caruso reports... (Pittsburgh City Paper)

Stephen A. Smith belatedly apologizes for xenophobic remarks

Kerry Flynn writes: "'Stephen A. Smith's take is a bad one' is the lede to Sarah Valenzuela's NY Daily News story on the xenophobic remarks the ESPN commentator made on Monday, and I couldn't agree more with her. Smith had mocked MLB star Shohei Ohtani for using a interpreter, suggesting it would help the sport if he didn't need one. Smith later posted a 2-minute video doubling down on his take before he finally apologized later in the day. 'I screwed up. In this day and age, with all the violence being perpetrated against the Asian Community, my comments — albeit unintentional — were clearly insensitive and regrettable,' he tweeted..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Kerry Flynn:

-- Angela Fu analyzes the record number of union drives across newspapers, digital outlets and broadcast stations... (Poynter)

-- The Atlantic's union said it won a "card check" after an "overwhelming majority of editorial employees signed union cards" with the NewsGuild of New York... (Twitter)

-- Curious about the new owner of Mel Magazine? Mark Stenberg speaks to Recurrent Ventures execs about their media buying spree... (Adweek)

-- "Ultimately these are TV shows, and people like watching TV on the big screen in the living room," Rob Holmes, Roku's VP of programming, says of Quibi's shows, now Roku Originals... (Adweek)

-- "Disney is raising the price of ESPN+ by a dollar a month to $6.99 after agreeing to a slew of new sports rights deals this year," Alex Sherman reports... (CNBC)

Lowry's review of "Catch and Kill"

Brian Lowry writes: "On one level, 'Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes' effectively translates Ronan Farrow's reporting about Harvey Weinstein into an HBO docuseries, turning the equivalent of radio into TV, and detailing the intensive work of getting the story into print after NBC passed on it. On another, it got me thinking about Ben Smith's NYT column about Farrow's reporting and the way that he creates highly cinematic scenes, since this slick production essentially approximates the feel of a detective thriller with Farrow as its star." The series premiered Monday night on HBO...

Britney Spears in talks with former federal prosecutor

"Britney Spears is consulting with Mathew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor, about potentially representing her in her conservatorship battle," Chloe Melas reports, confirming Sunday night's reports.

>> Context: "During court testimony last month, Spears stated that she wanted to select her own attorney. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny is expected to consider the singer's request for new counsel at a hearing Wednesday." Rosengart had no comment when reached by CNN on Monday...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

By Amelia Burns:

-- Mike Isaac and Taylor Lorenz write about the "arms race" Facebook is engaged in to "court creators" to its platforms... (NYT)

-- Marc Ambinder writes that "Twitter can't be oblivious to the consequences of malicious speech acts published digitally," and its correlation "with some degree of real-world harm to communities..." (MSNBC)

-- Politico's Emily Birnbaum on The Internet Association: "Silicon Valley's longtime voice in D.C. is in disarray..." (Politico)

-- "YouTube is expanding the availability of Shorts, its TikTok competitor, to 100 countries," I. Bonifacic reports... (Engadget)

-- TikTok opened a pop-up, the first "TikTok For You House," in west London. Fans can pay for tutorials from influencers... (The Guardian)

-- Alyssa Rosenberg's latest column, pegged to "Black Widow," questions "the power of Hollywood to shape what it means to be a strong woman..." (WaPo)

'Black Widow' boosts Disney stock

"Disney was the best performer in the Dow Monday, gaining more than 4% following the strong box office numbers and solid streaming revenue for Marvel's 'Black Widow' over the weekend," CNN's Paul R. La Monica reported...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN

-- "Jerry O'Connell, a favorite among daytime TV fans, is nearing a deal to become a full-time co-host on 'The Talk,'" Tony Maglio reports. "He'll effectively replace Sharon Osbourne, who left the CBS show in March..." (TheWrap)

-- "Jon Stewart is set to get back in front of a live studio audience for his new Apple show," Peter White reports. Filming will take place July 14 and July 16 in front of a vaccinated audience... (Deadline)

-- David Rooney's review of "The French Dispatch" premiere at Cannes: "Wes Anderson pens an extravagant love letter to the adventurous editors of sophisticated literary magazines like The New Yorker, and to the writers, humorists and illustrators nurtured up through their ranks..." (THR)

-- Ben Sisario notes that Olivia Rodrigo's album "Sour" has "now spent three weeks in the Billboard 200's peak position..." (NYT)

-- Lesley Goldberg writes about how CBS "is changing its premiere strategy..." (THR)

-- "Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett will celebrate the first anniversary of their podcast, 'SmartLess,' by bringing the show on the road," Marianne Garvey reports... (CNN)

Eye on the Emmys

"CBS and the TV Academy on Monday announced that Cedric the Entertainer will make his Emmys hosting debut in September as the big show returns to a live, in-person format," Sandra Gonzalez writes. "A 'limited audience of nominees and their guests' will also be present, according to a press release."

>> Brian Lowry adds: "It's interesting that Stephen Colbert won't be hosting the Emmys this year. I suspect there are a number of reasons for that, but one of them is surely that with ratings for the awards having declined precipitously, they're clearly not the significant primetime showcase for a network's late-night talent that they used to be..."

>> But first: The nominations! Here are Scott Feinberg's predictions for THR...

>> The question atop David Canfield's latest for VF: "Is This the Year Netflix Finally Conquers the Emmys?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART EIGHT

-- Tara Lachapelle's latest: "Netflix Proves It's Essential, Pandemic or Not..." (Bloomberg)

-- "As ill-advised as it may be, Netflix is inviting you to cook with Paris Hilton," Sandra Gonzalez writes... (CNN)

-- "Professional Bull Riders and ViacomCBS, have inked a deal that will merge PBR RidePass, the subscription streaming service from the Endeavor-owned sports outfit, into Pluto TV," Alex Weprin reports... (THR)

-- "Jennifer Lopez's Nuyorican Productions, Skydance and Concord have teamed to develop TV projects based on the many musicals in Concord's vault, including the Rodgers & Hammerstein catalog," Cynthia Littleton reports... (Variety)

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Pet of the day

Reader Gwen Rodnick emails a photo of Izzy and Ozzy: "These two have helped me get through some difficult times..."

Thank you for reading! Email us your feedback and send us your tips anytime. You should also send us a photo of your pets. We will be back in your inbox tomorrow...

Share this newsletter: