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Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets Hardcover – November 14, 2023

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • By an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal, a behind-the-scenes look at the manipulative tactics Facebook used to grow its business, how it distorted the way we connect online, and the company insiders who found the courage to speak out

"Broken Code fillets Facebook’s strategic failures to address its part in the spread of disinformation, political fracturing and even genocide. The book is stuffed with eye-popping, sometimes Orwellian statistics and anecdotes that could have come only from the inside." —New York Times Book Review

Once the unrivaled titan of social media, Facebook held a singular place in culture and politics. Along with its sister platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, it was a daily destination for billions of users around the world. Inside and outside the company, Facebook extolled its products as bringing people closer together and giving them voice.

But in the wake of the 2016 election, even some of the company’s own senior executives came to consider those claims pollyannaish and simplistic. As a succession of scandals rocked Facebook, they—and the world—had to ask whether the company could control, or even understood, its own platforms.

Facebook employees set to work in pursuit of answers.  They discovered problems that ran far deeper than politics. Facebook was peddling and amplifying anger, looking the other way at human trafficking, enabling drug cartels and authoritarians, allowing VIP users to break the platform’s supposedly inviolable rules. They even raised concerns about whether the product was safe for teens. Facebook was distorting behavior in ways no one inside or outside the company understood. 

Enduring personal trauma and professional setbacks, employees successfully identified the root causes of Facebook's viral harms and drew up concrete plans to address them. But the costs of fixing the platform—often measured in tenths of a percent of user engagement—were higher than Facebook's leadership was willing to pay. With their work consistently delayed, watered down, or stifled, those who best understood Facebook’s damaging effect on users were left with a choice: to keep silent or go against their employer.

Broken Code tells the story of these employees and their explosive discoveries. Expanding on “The Facebook Files,” his blockbuster, award-winning series for The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jeff Horwitz lays out in sobering detail not just the architecture of Facebook’s failures, but what the company knew (and often disregarded) about its societal impact. In 2021, the company would rebrand itself Meta, promoting a techno-utopian wonderland. But as Broken Code shows, the problems spawned around the globe by social media can’t be resolved by strapping on a headset.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

NAMED A PORCHLIGHT BOOKS BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR

"
Broken Code fillets Facebook’s strategic failures to address its part in the spread of disinformation, political fracturing and even genocide. The book is stuffed with eye-popping, sometimes Orwellian statistics and anecdotes that could have come only from the inside."
New York Times Book Review

"Broken Code offers a comprehensive, briskly reported examination of key systems governing [Facebook] and their many failings... A smartly reported investigation into the messy internal machinations of one of the world’s most important and least understood companies."
—Washington Post


“Jeff Horwitz has written a blockbuster expose of Facebook, the notoriously secretive social media giant whose benign mission—connecting people—masked a growing propensity towards some of humanity’s worst impulses. Populated by concerned, brave employees who defied their employer and leaked thousands of pages of internal documents to Horwitz, with the imperious, remote Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants at the center,
Broken Code is brilliant reporting and a page-turning narrative of immense importance.”
James B. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author

“A dogged and meticulous reporter, Jeff Horwitz is at the height of his powers in Broken Code, a penetrating portrait of one of the most significant companies in the world and of one of the great new challenges of this technological era.”
Ronan Farrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author

"An unsettling account….Stories of executives bumbling their way through or outright ignoring issues within the company are breathtaking and troubling… Horwitz’s reporting shines...This convincingly makes the case that Facebook’s pursuit of growth at any cost has had disastrous offline consequences."
—Publishers Weekly

"Readers interested in the ethics of the internet and technology, the business aspects of social media, and social media's impact on society at large will be fascinated. Horwitz has created an essential resource."
—Booklist

"A well-researched, disturbing study of a tech behemoth characterized by arrogance, hypocrisy, and greed." 
Kirkus Reviews

"Impressive reporting... A thoroughly documented portrait of a company that recognizes its products have harmed people yet declines to meaningfully change them."
San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

JEFF HORWITZ is a technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal. His work on “The Facebook Files” won the George Polk Award for Business Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. Previously an investigative reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, DC, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday (November 14, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385549180
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385549189
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings

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4.3 out of 5 stars
96 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2024
    After 30+ years of IT experience with large companies and the last 2 years of which were in the thick of the front-end, client-side, e-commerce space, I am fortunate to have a decent understanding of the mechanics behind how and why Meta is able to cause such horrible atrocities without any consequences. What Jeff and his resources have provided here is very consistent with that understanding.

    I completely agree with the other 5-star reviewers! Jeff and the persons who have helped him bravely expose what we NEED TO HEAR about, have now given us hope and laid the groundwork for a new generation of companies, gaining an advantage on their competitors by positioning themselves as "Meta-Free" businesses, winning over today's and tomorrow's consumers who are increasingly demanding a privacy-centric and socially responsible user experience! We are already starting to see signs of this, thanks to some businesses which have moved past 2017 and learned that even indirectly contributing to genocide, human trafficking, teenage eating disorders and political polarization, is not a particularly prudent advertising model.

    When a large company does very, very bad things, we need to stop using its products. If a company is using FB plugins on its website, which nearly anyone can detect using basic browser tools, we will now run to that company's competitors. Fortunately, some companies and customers are starting to understand all of this, but we have a long way to go.

    Thank you, Jeff Horwitz, for sacrificing so much to help Frances Haugen and the others who have come forward to keep us informed, so we can eventually get out of this mess. While it will take all of us doing more to protect our own privacy, and choosing companies NOT using Meta products as much as possible, we would never even have such an opportunity if it was not for those who brought us this knowledge, especially Jeff Horwitz.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2024
    Horowitz has done yeoman’s work on this book. It avoids speculation in favor of data and facts. It was clearly carefully researched. Kudos to Jeff Horowitz and the WSJ for developing a great source in France’s Haugen.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2024
    Horwitz gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Facebook’s repeated decisions to place business over society at large. By cultivating an impressive roster of former Facebook insiders (including the mother of all sources, Frances Haugen), the book paints a disturbing picture of Facebook’s inner workings. Horwitz gives numerous insider-accounts of Executives (Zuckerberg especially) repeatedly choosing increased usage-metics despite evidence of actual societal harm — i.e. the Rohingya Genocide, Indian ethnic violence, the Jan 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol etc.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2023
    I am in the process of reading this book. The author's choice of vocabulary seems less than eloquent. For example, he uses words like "incent" meaning to incentivize and "liase" meaning to establish a liaison.
    The subject matter, Facebook's CEO's gross lack of ethics, while claiming to serve humanity, is also very depressing.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2024
    The main take away, meta-face, sounds like a horrible place to work. The book is a solid reminder that "social media" is neither social or media. The "leadership" of these tech companies seem to lack even the most basic humanity. Just reminds me of why I got clean of Facebooks toxic sludge.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2024
    A great overview of how good intentions when met with profit-seeking can lead to disaster. This is a definite must read for anyone in a company leadership position. This shows a slow slide and erosion of values to risk undermining a society.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2023
    I won't spoil the story, but if you have ever wondered whether Facebook does enough to protect its users, this book clearly shows it does not. If you've ever wondered whether Facebook is safe, this book clearly shows it is not.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2024
    Well-researched account showing Facebook leadership’s repeated failures to address the polarization and the spread of radicalizing content. Please read it.
    5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Cranky Spider
    5.0 out of 5 stars What goes on under the covers in a technology company
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2024
    Interesting investigation into the difference between the public statements of Facebook in respect of its societal impact and what they actually prioritise. So its all about engagement rather than feeling any responsibility for how their platforms are used - or gamed by bad actors. If you were to turn on your tap and raw sewage came out, the water companies would get sued... Facebook enables a lot of toxic usage under the guise that they aren't there to manage the quality of user content. Hence why so much inappropriate content doesn't violate their usage policies... essentially they haven't really got any and anything goes... More people should read this sort of investigative journalism as we are about to repeat on steroids with AI....
  • Peter Suwara
    1.0 out of 5 stars Repeats itself ad-nauseam ...
    Reviewed in Australia on July 19, 2024
    After the first engaging chapter, the second felt like a repeat but with different words and different people. The entire book ended up being chapter after chapter on the discourse of political opinions and their influences of the platform.

    This is more a discourse on personal political opinions rather than actual insight into how the platform works, its flaws in management and the technical issues faced by the teams.

    It became so exhausting after the third chapter, repeating the same talking points of the previous two, that I just gave up.

    I don't really care about US politics and their elections, maybe that's why I felt it was just pointless.

    Once you read the first chapter you essentially have read the whole thing.

    Let me save you the headache of reading this book.

    TLDR : Facebook is a mess and it's on the way out...