--REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-~- ee A Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE— SEC Office of the Whistleblower Via Online Portal & Fax pp rities Law Violations by Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: Facebook misled investors and the public about bringing “the world closer together” where it relegates international users and promotes global division and ethnic violence. To the SEC Office of the Whistleblower: 1. The instant letter is one of multiple disclosures related to the above-captioned matter. Our anonymous client is disclosing original evidence showing that Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has, for years past and ongoing, violated U.S. securities laws by making material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors and prospective investors, including, inter alia, through filings with the SEC, testimony to Congress, online statements and media stories. 2. Summary. Facebook claims it has 2.8 billion users across the globe, nearly two-thirds of which use a language other than English; and Facebook has repeatedly reassured the public that it is committed to international issues; however, Facebook's internal documents show that Facebook lacks adequate systems, and facilitates polarizing misinformation and ethnic violence, across the world. FACEBOOK’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATERIAL ISSUES 3. As an Initial Matter, Facebook Targets and is Used by People Around the World. For example, in its last 10-K,' Facebook outlined: inttps:fsec.reporl/Document0001326801-21-000014). Emphasis is added throughout this letter by bold/undertined text. Whistleblower Aid is a U.S. tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 26-4716045. httpsu/WhistleblowerAid.org — Anonymously via Tor Browser https//péufg7SqskewSScglxtéhktyt35rbl46yultzyuytadtvicywaSpclid.onion Contact via SecureDrop over Tor: htto:/whistlebloweraid securedrop.toranion — via Signal App: +1.201-773-1971 1--REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-~- ee A Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. “The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting stock held by non-affiliates . .. was $563 billion. .. Facebook daily active users (DAUs) Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) were 2.80 billion.” “Daily Active Users” worldwide were estimated as 1,845 million at the end of December 2020, with “Daily Active Users” in the United States and Canada combined as 195 million in the same time period [i.¢., 10.57% of users are in those countries]. Europe was listed as 308 million, Asia-Pacific as 744 million, and the “Rest of World” as 598 million during this timeframe. 4. Moreover, as summarized by the Federal Trade Commission's recent amended complaint against Facebook for antitrust violations: “Last year alone, Facebook generated revenues of more than $85 billion and profits of more than $29 billion . . . fand] in earnings calls, Facebook COO ‘Sheryl Sandberg described Facebook .... as the ‘world’s first global platform that lets marketers personalize their messages at unprecedented scale,’ and called Facebook Blue and Instagram the ‘two most important mobile advertising platforms’ in the world.”? 5. Facebook Has Admitted Potential Investor Risks With its International Operations. For instance, Facebook's recent 10-K* and 10-Q* acknowledged: “We have significant international operations and plan to continue expanding our operations abroad . . . If we fail to deploy, manage, or oversee our 4 - - fs i f addition, we are subject to a variety of risks inherent in doing business internationally, including . . . enhanced difficulty in reviewing content on our platform and enforcing our community standards across different languages and countries . . . geopolitical events affecting us, our marketers or our industry, including trade disputes and pandemics.”* 6. In addition, Facebook recognized in internal records earlier this year (2021): “We frequently observe highly-coordinated, intentional activity on the FOAS [n.b. Family of Apps and Services] by problematic actors, including states, foreign actors, and actors with a record of criminal, violent or hateful behaviour, aimed at promoting social violence, promoting hate, exacerbating ethnic and other societal cleavages, and/or delegitimizing *htpsiwwwfte.govisystenvlesidocuments/casesiect_75-1_tte_v facebook public redacted_fac.pct. “https: ffsec.report/Documen¥/0001326801-21-0000'14/ «https: lisec.report/Documenti000132680'-21-000049/ “hitpsl/sec.reporvDocumen/0001326801-21-000014). — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-- ~ AID Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. social institutions through misinformation. This is particularly revalent--and problematic---in At Risk Countries and Contexts.”” 7. Whistleblowers and News Articles Have Highlighted Facebook's Involvement in Violence and Genocide as well as Global Political Misinformation. As just ‘one example, in Myanmar, the New York Times’ and BBC News,’ among others, reported that military used the platform to promote fake news and other content facilitating what is now recognized as a genocide. For instance, BBC News reported back in 2018 and also earlier this year in 2021: “Facebook . .. agrees with a report that found it had failed to prevent its platform being used to ‘incite offline violence’ in Myanmar. The independent report, commissioned by Facebook, said the platform had created an ‘enabling environment’ for the proliferation of human rights abuse.”* “It is widely said thet, in Myanmar, Facebook is the internet . . . and] UN human rights investigators have . . . concluded that hate speech on Facebook played a key role in fomenting violence in Myanmar. .. Facebook was complicit ina genocide. There were already signs and strong calls for Facebook to handle the incitement of violence on the platform but their inaction really contributed to the fanning of violence in Myanmar. . .""° 8. The Myanmar events led not only to Congressional questioning,"' such as by Maria Cantwell in October 2020, but to a Facebook report and further promises, such as: “Facebook stands against hate and violence, including in Myanmar, and supports justice for international crimes . .. we have invested heavily in people, technology and partnerships to examine and address the abuse of Facebook in Myanmar, and [an independent] report acknowledges that we are now taking the right corrective actions. . . [e.g..] use of artificial intelligence ... If... content violates our policies, we will remove it. "? 9. Further, in late 2020, a widely publicized whistleblower--a former Facebook data scientist--spoke out against Facebook regarding global political manipulation on the platform and was subsequently fired. As reported by Buzzfeed and other news sources, as well as first-hand statements in the enclosed documents, stating: . [Coordinated Social Harm, p. 4 * hitps./twwwenytimes.com/20 18 10/5itechnolagy/myanmar-facebook-genocide html * https: /iwwwbbe.cominews/world-asia-46 105934. * https:/twww.bbe. cominewsiworld-asia-46105934. ° htips:/waw bbc. com/newsiworid-asia-65920654, “nts: www rev.com/blogitranscripts/tech-ceos-senate-testimony-transcriptoctober-28, See https:/faboutfb.com/news/2018/1 myanmar-hral — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-- ZOD Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. “she'd identified dozens of countries, including India, Mexico, Afghanistan, and South Korea, where . . . abuse was enabling politicians to mislead the public and gain power. It also revealed how little [Facebook] had done.” “I've found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales.”"* ‘I personally discovered . .. a massive CIB [Coordinated inauthentic Behavior] operation that used thousands of inauthentic assets to boost President Juan Orlando Hemandez of Honduras on a massive scale to mislead the Honduran people... . Yet despite the blatantly violating nature of this activity, it took me almost a year to take down his operation . . . similar to Honduras [was Azerbaijan] . . . [But] We focus upon harm and priority regions like the United States.” FACEBOOK’S MISSTATEMENTS AND OMISSIONS 10. Facebook Made Misstatements Regarding its Commitment to Global Issues, Including in Testimony Before Congress. in particular, in 2018, before the Energy and Commerce Committee," Mrs. Brooks asked Mark Zuckerberg: “| want to make sure there is appropriate attention on . . . how you help us in this country keep our country safe from terrorists . . . So | need you to help assure us, as well as the American people, what is Facebook's role, leadership role, in helping us fight terrorism and help us stop the recruitment? Because it is still a grave danger around the world.” 11. Mark Zuckerberg responded: “Terrorist content and propaganda has no place in our network, and we have developed a number of tools that have now made it so that 99 percent of the ISIS and al-Qaida content that we take down is identified by these systems and taken down before anyone in our system even flags it for us. So that is an example of removing harmful content 12. Mrs. Brooks followed up: "pw ochnologyreview.con/2021/07728/1080260tacbookwhisclower-sphie-zhang aba plial- manipula on! “https:/www.buzzfeednews,com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo. s ‘Sophie Zhang big post p.1-2 4.8.18, see 20 NM Sophie Zhang - ex post and team debate “*https:/ieneraycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats. energycommerce house. govifiles/documents/20180411-FC%20Fac_ ebook 20 Transparency "o20andh20Use%200Mz0CensumersZ0Data pa — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-- ZOD Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. “| have heard you say 99 percent... . but yet, as recently as March 29, ISIS content was discovered on Facebook, which included an execution video . . . on April 9, of Hezbollah content and so forth. And so what is the mechanism that you are using? Is it artificial intelligence? Is it the 20,000 people? . . . this is just within a week.” 13. Mark Zuckerberg replied: “{Itt is a combination of technology and people. We have a Counterterrorism team at Facebook which is -- . .. Two hundred people -- just focused on counterterrorism. And there are other content reviewers who are reviewing content that gets flagged to them as well. So those are folks who are working specifically on that. | think we have capacity in 30 languages that we are working on. And, in addition to that, we have a number of Al tools that we are developing, like the ones that I had mentioned, that can proactively go flag the content.” 14.As another example, in a November 2020 statement" before Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Feinstein, and other Members, Mark Zuckerberg testified: “Our products enable more than 3 billion people around the world to share ideas, offer support, and discuss important issues, including politics, public health, and social issues. We think that community is particularly important now when the COVID19 pandemic has disrupted so many aspects of our daily lives. We believe we have a responsibility to keep people safe on our service and to protect free expression, and we work hard to set and enforce policies that meet this goal.” 15. Moreover, in May 2021, Facebook responded to questions following a March 2021 hearing entitled “Disinformation Nation: Social Media's Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation.” For instance, Honorable Schakowsky asked: “Phrases and symbols associated with minority communities are systematically more likely to be flagged as hate speech on social media platforms, regardless of how benign the content is. The Sikh community has noticed the targeted removal of benign posts that reference Sikh religious artifacts, political speech, and community organizing. How will Facebook create channels of recourse that will prevent the structural and systematic suppression of content from minority communities? . . . fand] What is the role of international policy teams in determining global policies? How do “hitps:/wwn judiciary senate goviimoimedialdoc/Zuckerberg%20Testimony pat. *httpslidocs house. gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20210325/111407/HHRG-117-IF 16-Wstate-ZuckerbergM-20210325-SD004 pdf. — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER OND --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS -- Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. intemational policies impact the policies of other nations? What safeguards does Facebook have...” 16. Facebook responded: “The conversations that happen on Facebook reflect the diversity of a community of more than two billion people communicating across countries and cultures and in dozens of languages, posting everything from text to photos and videos. We recognize how important it is for Facebook to be a place where people feel empowered to communicate. While Facebook is unequivocally opposed to hate speech and committed to removing it from our platform, we're also committed to getting better at addressing content moderation issues, including improving specific policies, our review process, and community reporting. Our policies are enforced both automatically and by means of human review .. .” “Our Community Standards are a living set of guidelines—they must keep pace with changes happening online and in the world. The core of our policy development process is a twice-monthly, global meeting where we debate and discuss potential changes to our Community Standards members of our content policy team reach out to internal and external experts, analyze data, conduct research, and study relevant scholarship to inform our policy proposals. This multi-step effort all is to int fe a range of perspectives and opinions across the globe, as well as unintended consequences and efforts to thwart our policies . ..” 17. To emphasize its goals, Facebook represented: “Our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together—a mission that is inherently global and enhanced 18. In the same May 2021 statement of answers for the record,” Facebook outlined: “Moving fast to find and remove dangerous organizations, including terrorist and hate groups, takes significant investment in both people and technology. At Facebook, we have tripled the size of our teams working in safety and security since 2016 to over 35,000 people— including teams that review reports of hate speech and content that praises, supports, or represents hate groups. We also have several hundred people who exclusively or primarily focus on countering dangerous organizations as their core responsibility. ..” °nttpsiidocs house. gov/meetings/IFilF 16/202 10325/111407/HHRG-117-IF16-Wstate-ZuckerberqM-20210325-SD004 pat. *https:lidocs house. govimeetings/IF/IF16/20210325/111407/HHRG-117-1F16-Wstale-ZuckerbergM-20210325-SD004 pdf. — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS -- ~ AID Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. “Four years ago, we developed a playbook and a series of automated techniques to detect content related to terrorist organizations such as ISIS, al Qaeda, and their affiliates. We've since expanded these techniques to detect and remove content related to other terrorist and hate groups.” wntin ively investic linated in i behavior (“CIB”) campaigns targeting public debate in the US and around the world. When we find CIB campaigns, we will investigate them, disrupt them, and make our findings and attribution public, as we've repeatedly committed to do . . . In August 2019, for example, we removed a network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong. As another example, in September 2020, we removed a network that originated in China and focused primarily on the Philippines and Southeast Asia more broadly, and also on the United States.”*" 19. More recently, in August 2021 in response to the events in Afghanistan, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of security policy, tweeted: “We're working closely with our counterparts in industry, civil society and government to provide whatever support we can to help protect people . . . Over the past week, our teams have been working around the clock to do everything we can to help keep people safe,” 20. Further, in the recent Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement,” Facebook's shareholders proposed having a human/civil rights expert on the board, stating: “In September 2020, a Facebook employee reported Facebook ignored global political manipulation from foreign governments seeking to ‘abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry.’ [see also below] Children’s rights organization Plan International found online attacks against girls globally are most prevalent on Facebook. The Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand, livestreamed on Facebook, led to a global call to limit the spread of extremist content . In Myanmar, where violence against the Rohingya ‘bears the hallmarks of genocide,’ a Facebook commissioned human rights report showed the company ‘created an enabling environment. In Ethiopia, Facebook's platform amplified ethnic tensions and calls for genocide, inciting * hitipsidacs. house. govimeetings/IF/IF16/20210325/111407/HHRG-117-IF 16-Welate-ZuckerbergM-20210325-S0004 pal. 2 htips:/twitter.comingleicher/status!1428474001630785540, * hilpsuiwww.sec.gov/Archivesfedgat/data! 132680 1/000132680121000022ifacebook202 tdefinitiveprox him, — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —WHISTLEBLOWER OND Report government and corporate lawbreaking. ‘Without breaking the law. --REDACTED FOR CONGRESS-~- violence. The United Nations’ Human Rights Council called on Facebook to. ‘conduct perioaic reviews of the human rights impact of their activities in Ethiopia’ noting ‘a clear responsibility to integrate human rights . ..”” 21.In rejecting that shareholder proposal, Facebook represented: “We recognize the need to protect and respect both civil and human rights and we have made, and continue to make, significant progress on both of these fronts and fight abuse across our services. We believe that implementing this proposal is unnecessary because of our continued progress in this area and our efforts to fight abuse across our services. . 22. Facebook Made Key Misstatements About its Language Capabilities, Including in Secutities Filings and Congressional Testimony. For example, in Facebook's recent 10-K** and 10-Q* forms, it represented: “We have significant international operations and pian to continue expanding our operations abroad where we have more limited operating experience, and this may subject us to increased business, economic, and legal risks that could affect our financial results. We have significant international operations and plan to continue the international expansion of our business operations el the translation of our products. We currently make Facebook available than 100 different lan and we have offices or: contars in more than 30 different countries.” 23. Likewise, in its May 2021 statement to the Committee on Energy and Commerce,” Facebook responded to a number of questions regarding concerns about combating information in different languages. For example, Honorable Eshoo asked: “Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese, French and French Creole, Korean, German, Arabic, and Russian... What are you doing to combat misinformation in these languages?” “With regards to Spanish-language misinformation and Spanish-speaking content moderators, how does Facebook account for cultural differences of content moderators that come from diverse cultural experiences (2. Spain and South Texas)?” *hitpsilisec.repor’Documenv0001326801-21-000014. * hilpsiisec.repor’Document/0001326801-21-000049) **hitpsilisec-reportDocumenti0001326801-21-000014 "ttps:lidocs. house. govimeetings/IF/IF16/20210325/111407/HHRG-117-1F 16-Welate-ZuckerbergM-20210325-S0004 pdt. — ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURE —