The Facebook Dilemma

FRONTLINE’s investigation examines the world’s largest social media platform and how its policies and practices have impacted personal privacy and democracies worldwide. Beginning with footage of a young Mark Zuckerberg in his first office, reporters James Jacoby, Anya Bourg, and Dana Priest dig deep into the culture of the Silicon Valley giant to reveal a corporation that willfully ignored warnings and shirked responsibility as they reveled in global success. Rare interviews with former Facebook staff, many speaking out for the first time, offer insight into the company’s business model and how exploitation of user data was the rocket behind its growth and profits. The film addresses the disturbing consequences of Facebook’s hands-off policies: Russian interference in the U.S. elections, a flood of disinformation in Ukraine and the Philippines, and the spread of hate speech in Myanmar, with deeply tragic effects. For showing its 2.3 billion users how Facebook uses them, we award The Facebook Dilemma a Peabody.