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Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, with The New York Times’s Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

Science &
Technology

How did a company founded with the lofty goal of bringing us all together become one of the most potent tools for polarisation in the world?

“My goal was never to just create a company. I wanted to build something that actually makes a really big change in the world.” – Mark Zuckerberg

How did it all go wrong for Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook? How did a company founded with the lofty goal of bringing us all together become one of the most potent tools for polarisation in the world? According to The New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, the missteps we’ve seen in the last five years are not an anomaly but an inevitability: this is how the platform was built to perform. In a period of great upheaval, growth has remained the single focus of Zuckerberg and his COO Sheryl Sandberg.

In July 2021 Frenkel and Kang came to Intelligence Squared to share the revelations of their new book An Ugly Truth. Drawing on unrivaled sources, Frenkel and Kang gave us an unprecedented view inside the politics, alliances and rivalries within one of the most powerful companies in the world. 

Event Name

Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, with The New York Times's Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

Intelligence Squared+
Online Event
WATCH ON DEMAND
Speakers for the motion

  • Cecilia Kang

    National technology correspondent for The New York Times

  • Sheera Frenkel

    Cybersecurity reporter for The New York Times

Chair

  • Josh Glancy

    Washington bureau chief for The Sunday Times

Speakers

Speakers

Cecilia Kang

National technology correspondent for The New York Times

National technology correspondent for The New York Times. She writes about regulatory issues such as privacy, cybersecurity, antitrust and the digital divide. Cecilia spent one decade at The Washington Post as senior technology correspondent and began her career in Seoul, South Korea for Dow Jones. She won the George Polk Award, Loeb Award and was a Pulitzer finalist for coverage of Facebook in 2018.

Sheera Frenkel

Cybersecurity reporter for The New York Times

Cybersecurity reporter 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
Chair

Josh Glancy

Washington bureau chief for The Sunday Times

Washington bureau chief for The Sunday Times. Prior to that he was the paper’s New York correspondent. He also writes a weekly column from America for The Sunday Times Magazine and contributes features and interviews.