NL Interview: Sophie Zhang on what it took to become a Facebook whistleblower

Sophie Zhang is a former data scientist at Facebook, now Meta, who published a series of articles in the Guardian on the social media platform’s fake engagement accounts. She alleged these often lead to interference in political elections.

In this interview with Chitranshu Tewari, Sophie describes the suspicious patterns of behaviour she observed in 2019 with respect to India. On the company’s reluctance to act on matters involving fake accounts in India, she points at “political pressure and the general lack of motivation of the company to police its own system”.

“The fact that we have such high expectations of Facebook...is perhaps a statement on the public relations that it enjoys,” she says.

She also talks about the impact of her whistleblowing on her personal life, and what motivates her to keep speaking out. “It’s been an exhausting few years,” she says. “I put up with it because it’s important.”

Watch.

Listen to this interview here: