Many years ago, when Facebook was an entity most people had warm – or at least neutral – feelings towards, I visited the company’s HQ in Menlo Park, California. I admired the free restaurants and leisure facilities. I sneered at the “graffiti wall”, where Facebook employees were invited to grab a felt-tip and answer the question: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” (Say something negative about Facebook, perhaps.) And I attended a presentation by then chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who was surprisingly nervous; I recall noticing how her voice shook as she addressed the smirking European hacks. Then I went to the gift shop and bought Facebook-branded hoodies for my kids.
Obviously I wouldn’t put them in Facebook gear now. Over the past decade or so the evolution of Facebook (now Meta) in general and Sandberg in particular has been one of slow then fast descent from corporate brave new world to something much grimmer and more familiar. In the New York Times this week, details of a new memoir by a Facebook whistleblower, the very existence of which was kept under wraps by the publisher until a few days before, were shared and – how else to put this: bloody hell.
