sheryl 👏 sandberg 👏 was 👏 seething 👏

And: it is almost thanksgiving.

Dear readers,

“Sheryl Sandberg was seething.”

What a lede! The New York Times opened their watershed exposé, dramatically entitled: “Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis” with it. So we figured we would go ahead and open Meatspace with it — and an unrelated image of a nice seasonal turkey — as well.

We honestly cannot even get into all the delaying and the denying and the deflecting here: we suggest you just read the story, or the sparknotes; or at least listen to The Daily episode about the obfuscation operation. The story explains a lot about the very personal power dynamics at play behind the scenes of the biggest social media platform in the world; and about how human beings (not just their algorithms) shaped the post-2016 reality.

But we were also like: Would the NYT ever open with an emotional line like that about a man? “Mark Zuckerberg was seething” / “Sundar Pinchai was fuming” / “Tim Cook popped off”? We don’t see it.

Another takeaway that is admittedly def not the point of the article but was striking to us: they call Sandberg a “feminist icon” who wrote an “empowerment manifesto” (!)

The irony of the queen of Leaning In getting to a powerful position only to scrape the personal data of millions of users — feminist and non-feminist alike — was not lost on The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan. Feminist site Jezebel took the NYT piece as an opportunity to suggest that, “Maybe Someone Should Lean Out” (had to do it to them). Or at least lean away from the suss, right-wing PR agency that Sandberg seems to have a close relationship with: Definers.

The Times exposé obviously prompted several other spicy hot takes, including: a clap-back from FB’s own newsroom, disputing several claims in the reporting (though slipperily calling some statements “unfair” instead of “untrue”); Quartz wondering if users have a moral obligation to quit Facebook; Recode wondering who (if anyone) will be fired for all of this; and the Times reporting that FB’s years of other scandals means it’s already having a hard time attracting talent.

One good thing that FB did this week: Ended forced arbitration for sexual harassment cases, taking Google’s lead. (Though as Terri Gerstein argues in the Times, most tech companies still have yet to extend that policy to all cases, and to all contractors.)

One creepy thing it is apparently doing: scanning pics of ur family to mine them for demographic info to give to advertisers, per The Verge.

WITH THE TASTE OF UR LIPS I’M ON A RIDE

Toxic is the dictionary’s word of the year. Incidentally, it is also the song of the year (and of every year since its release in 2003, tbh).

But JUST BECAUSE Facebook has been deemed this week’s Toxic Tech Titan doesn’t mean we have forgotten about others.

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is tunneling a hyperloop path under people’s homes in L.A.. Mayors are happy. Citizens are not.

Google is trying to build a techno-utopia in Toronto, and anti-surveillance/anti-dystopic-colonialism activists are fighting back.

And the CEO of Spanx, Sara Blakely, revealed that she takes herself on a fake commute every morning, bc she does her best thinking in the car. (Stop waking up early to do unhinged things!! But tbh, she’s right: Driving is good for thoughts.)  

UPDATE NOW / REMIND ME TOMORROW

Last week, we wrote about deepfakes and Jim Acosta. Since then, the Wall Street Journal has instituted a deepfake task force; Neiman Labs has published an incredibly helpful guide to creating and spotting deepfakery (tho they quote an expert saying the best way “to combat deepfakes is to augment humans with artificial intelligence tools,” which sounds like what Elon Musk’s cyborg-human-hybrid company is trying to do); and it was revealed (to us) that this pic of Justin Bieber eating a burrito wrong was staged by a look-alike. Also, a federal judge gave Jim Acosta’s press pass back, at least temporarily. (We cannot prove causation; only correlation.)

Paying Amazon almost $2 billion to open up a second headquarters in Long Island City has struck many people as ... bad. Amazon won’t start hiring workers til January (which is actually like, tomorrow), but already, the deal has caused displacement: Politico reported that before HQ2 was set to move in, their waterfront property was earmarked for 1,500 units of affordable housing. Now, the housing won’t be built. That’s what we call synergy!!

CURSED BITES

Travis Kalanick bought the penthouse in new Renzo Piano building (WSJ)

Anthony Scaramucci aka the Mooch is starting a fund to invest in low income neighborhoods (not like bad per se...just like...what?) (Business Insider)

Empire State Building lit up orange in honor of HQ2 (Empire State Building’s Twitter)

Juul seemed banned (NYT) from selling flavored e-cigs then like….wasn’t (Wired)

This one is actually a fun one: Vine is back! (as Byte) (TechCrunch)

The holiday season is fast-approaching. Meanwhile, to Juul Season, Jia Tolentino is saying Goodbye.

Goodbye,

Sarah and Lora