Thread by @HalMarshall2309

"By September, Haugen had made the decision not just to leak documents but to go public as a whistleblower.

" 'I just don’t want to agonize over what I didn’t do for the rest of my life. Compared to that, anything else doesn’t seem that bad,' Haugen wrote in a text.

“ 'You just defined bravery,' Fine responded. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

" ...Facebook has painted her as a low-level employee speaking about subjects on which she lacks direct knowledge. So far, however, Haugen has withstood that challenge through careful planning and deep research, according to interviews with her and those who know her.

"A believer in the power of data to tell a story, Haugen saw an opportunity to turn Facebook’s biggest weapon — its ability to collect and measure the human experience — against it.

"Facebook has an internal saying that 'data wins arguments,' which Haugen appears to have taken to heart when she left the company with tens of thousands of pages of its internal research and communications."

" ... Haugen also is steeped in the culture of Silicon Valley, familiar with its stagecraft and proficient in its methods, according to more than a half-dozen interviews with her friends, former colleagues and professors.

"And her role on Facebook’s civic integrity team, working on misinformation and counterespionage, uniquely positioned her to have insight into some of the company’s most significant challenges.

"Haugen joins a long list of tech industry whistleblowers who have gone public with the poor practices they’ve uncovered in Silicon Valley — including many from Facebook. But Haugen stands out for her methodical planning and the rigor with which she has built her case.

"She’s used Facebook’s own internal research and communications to show how the company directed resources away from key safety programs. She drew on the files and her own experiences to paint a picture of a company where a prioritization of growth metrics fueled decision-making.

"She has assembled a team of experts to back her, including lawyers from the nonprofit organization Whistleblower Aid and the public affairs firm Bryson Gillette."