We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

Book Cover
Average Rating
5 star
 
(0)
4 star
 
(0)
3 star
 
(1)
2 star
 
(0)
1 star
 
(0)
Published:
HarperAudio 2021
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description

"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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Also in This Series
Formats
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Works on MP3 Players, PCs, and Macs. Some mobile devices may require an application to be installed.
OverDrive Listen
Need Help?
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
More Like This
Other Editions and Formats
More Copies In LINK+
Loading LINK+ Copies...
More Details
Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
07/13/2021
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780062960696
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Sheera Frenkel. (2021). An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination. Unabridged HarperAudio.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Sheera Frenkel. 2021. An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination. HarperAudio.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Sheera Frenkel, An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination. HarperAudio, 2021.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Sheera Frenkel. An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination. Unabridged HarperAudio, 2021.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection1010
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
72b25ae8-a2f3-2c86-6881-9b94ae7659b1
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jul 09, 2021 16:15:05
Date Updated:
Apr 25, 2023 20:29:47
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 15:27:06
Last Metadata Change:
Feb 08, 2024 18:23:38
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 15:27:10
Last Availability Change:
Jan 04, 2024 20:50:58
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 22:33:22

OverDrive Product Record

images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/591/6AA/F7/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/591/6AA/F7/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
formats
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062960696
            • type: 8
            • value: harpercollins_audio#9780062960696
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062960696
            • type: 8
            • value: harpercollins_audio#9780062960696
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9780062960672
mediaType
Audiobook
primaryCreator
    • role: Author
    • name: Sheera Frenkel
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
An Ugly Truth
dateAdded
2021-07-09T21:41:00Z
contentDetails
      • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=5032258
      • type: text/html
      • account:
          • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
          • id: 1151
sortTitle
Ugly Truth Inside Facebooks Battle for Domination
crossRefId
5032258
subtitle
Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination
id
5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F
starRating
3.7

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain
False
formats
      • duration: 10:36:02
      • fileName: AnUglyTruth_9780062960696_5032258
      • partCount: 12
      • fileSize: 302990988
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062960696
            • type: 8
            • value: harpercollins_audio#9780062960696
      • rights:
            • type: PlayOnPC
            • value: 1
            • type: PlayOnPCCount
            • value: -1
            • type: BurnToCD
            • value: 1
            • type: BurnToCDCount
            • value: -1
            • type: PlayOnPM
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToNonSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferCount
            • value: -1
            • type: CollaborativePlay
            • value: 0
            • type: PublicPerformance
            • value: 0
            • type: TranscodeToAAC
            • value: 1
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • isReadAlong: False
      • bundledTitles:
            • format: ebook-pdf-adobe
            • id: 9E38BD1D-7548-4EF7-9369-B1D0106B2B89
            • format: ebook-overdrive
            • id: 9E38BD1D-7548-4EF7-9369-B1D0106B2B89
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • onSaleDate: 7/13/2021
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=5916aaf7-4d80-4901-a5d8-a286fcd8557f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
      • duration: 10:31:08
      • fileName: OverDrive_01455
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 302945171
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062960696
            • type: 8
            • value: harpercollins_audio#9780062960696
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • isReadAlong: False
      • bundledTitles:
            • format: ebook-pdf-adobe
            • id: 9E38BD1D-7548-4EF7-9369-B1D0106B2B89
            • format: ebook-overdrive
            • id: 9E38BD1D-7548-4EF7-9369-B1D0106B2B89
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
      • onSaleDate: 7/13/2021
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=5916aaf7-4d80-4901-a5d8-a286fcd8557f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Frenkel, Sheera
      • bioText:

        Sheera Frenkel covers cybersecurity from San Francisco for the New York Times. Previously, she spent over a decade in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, reporting for BuzzFeed, NPR, the Times of London and McClatchy Newspapers.

        Based in Washington, DC, Cecilia Kang covers technology and regulatory policy for the New York Times. Before joining the paper in 2015, she reported on technology and business for the Washington Post for ten years.

        Frenkel and Kang were part of the team of investigative journalists recognized as 2019 Finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. The team also won the George Polk Award for National Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Award for Investigative Reporting.

      • name: Sheera Frenkel
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Kang, Cecilia
      • name: Cecilia Kang
      • role: Narrator
      • fileAs: Frenkel, Sheera
      • bioText:

        Sheera Frenkel covers cybersecurity from San Francisco for the New York Times. Previously, she spent over a decade in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, reporting for BuzzFeed, NPR, the Times of London and McClatchy Newspapers.

        Based in Washington, DC, Cecilia Kang covers technology and regulatory policy for the New York Times. Before joining the paper in 2015, she reported on technology and business for the Washington Post for ten years.

        Frenkel and Kang were part of the team of investigative journalists recognized as 2019 Finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. The team also won the George Polk Award for National Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Award for Investigative Reporting.

      • name: Sheera Frenkel
      • role: Narrator
      • fileAs: Kang, Cecilia
      • name: Cecilia Kang
      • role: Narrator
      • fileAs: Graham, Holter
      • name: Holter Graham
publishDate
2021-07-13T00:00:00-04:00
edition
Unabridged
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
An Ugly Truth
fullDescription

"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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from August 2, 2021
        New York Times reporters Frenkel and Kang debut with a paragon of investigative journalism in this insiders’ account of the scandals and toxic culture at social media giant Facebook. 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, most notably the exploitation of users’ data, their “merciless” overthrows of competitors, and the “powerful monopoly” that resulted. They recap headline-grabbing events such as the discovery of Russian hackers’ use of the platform and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Less familiar (and more riveting) anecdotes include a contract employee leaking a memo to the press, who was then caught by Facebook’s “rat catcher,” Sonya Ahuja, and fired, and former vice president of global communications Elliot Schrage threatening a representative from Common Sense Media who was concerned about protecting children from the potential harms of social media. And 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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        An expos� on the many troubling aspects of the social media titan's rise to prominence. Frenkel and Kang, prizewinning New York Times journalists, chronicle the results of more than 1,000 hours of interviews with more than 400 people involved in this sordid story, including corporate executives, employees, investors, lawmakers, academics, and cultural observers, as well as "never-reported emails, memos, and white papers involving or approved by top executives." The authors focus primarily on the time between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, delivering a damning, often shocking portrait of finger-pointing and PR turmoil. Underpinning the narrative are a variety of global scandals involving Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, including the Cambridge Analytica debacle, the Russian cyber-meddling ordeal, and the use of Facebook and other social media to livestream the January Capitol insurrection. Ultimately, the authors assert that many Facebook executives had knowledge of the company's sketchy ethics but were powerless to create changes to circumvent problems or, as Frenkel and Kang exhaustively attest, to even redirect Zuckerberg's attention. The authors probe the business relationship between Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google exec with ruthless advertising instincts and data mining experience. The profile of Sandberg reveals fascinating details about how she employed the most controversial methodologies to surveil and capture "connected" Facebook user data and behavior patterns on the internet in order to maximize ad revenue. Also startling is the meticulous hunting abilities of Sonya Ahuja, the company's "rat catcher," who mercilessly rooted out internal harassment complaints and whistleblowers. This sharp study serves as a convincing, effectively researched and sourced report of how Zuckerberg and Sandberg erected their social media empire with controversial tactics and questionable management styles, all while avoiding a minefield of incriminating investigations and lawsuits. Though Zuckerberg and Sandberg initially agreed to participate in the authors' interviews (if just to deliver their perspective to readers), eventually they expressed "no interest in participating." Thorough, high-caliber investigative reporting every social media user should read.

        COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)

      • premium: True
      • source: AudioFile Magazine
      • content: The authors read the opening and closing segments; Holter Graham delivers an exceptional performance of the bulk of this audiobook. All three narrators communicate audible respect for this well-documented writing and a measure of alarm about its focus--the irresponsible leadership of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. The authors say the social app was designed from the start to be addictive and to make money through the sale of users' private data. They show how the company's thirst for market dominance and revenue led them to allow enemy-funded election disinformation on the site in 2016 and how Facebook continues to be irresponsible in curating posts. With his virtuoso phrasing skills and vocal panache, Graham's performance of this chilling book could not be more fitting. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
popularity
1276
links
    • self:
        • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/5916aaf7-4d80-4901-a5d8-a286fcd8557f/metadata
        • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
id
5916aaf7-4d80-4901-a5d8-a286fcd8557f
starRating
3.7
images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/591/6AA/F7/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/591/6AA/F7/{5916AAF7-4D80-4901-A5D8-A286FCD8557F}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
isPublicPerformanceAllowed
False
languages
      • code: en
      • name: English
subjects
      • value: Business
      • value: Politics
      • value: Nonfiction
      • value: Media Studies
publishDateText
07/13/2021
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9780062960672
mediaType
Audiobook
shortDescription

"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...

sortTitle
Ugly Truth Inside Facebooks Battle for Domination
crossRefId
5032258
subtitle
Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination
publisher
HarperAudio
bisacCodes
      • code: BUS071000
      • description: Business & Economics / Leadership
      • code: BUS077000
      • description: Business & Economics / Corporate & Business History
      • code: POL065000
      • description: Political Science / Political Process / Media & Internet