PLATFORMS ON TRIAL: MAPPING THE FACEBOOK FILES/PAPERS CONTROVERSY

Abstract

Big Tech has been involved in several controversies in recent years. Data leaks, whistleblowers, and social experiments have raised alarms about the dubbed toxic and unaccountable power of platforms and, more broadly, about the increasing crisis of accountability in digital societies (Cooper et al., 2022; Khan, 2018; Marres, 2021). At the intersection of digital sociology, media studies, and STS, this research explores how different actors make and unmake connections between social media platforms and societal harms. The study focuses on mapping a specific platform controversy: the Facebook Files/Papers, a leak in 2021 of internal documents from Meta by the former employee Frances Haugen. The disclosures partially exposed what Meta knew about the consequences of its interface designs, data, and algorithms (Hendrix, 2021; Horwitz, 2021). By combining digital and ethnographic methods, I followed the disclosures across different media settings to analyse how they were made public and which actors, issues, and framings gained prominence during the controversy. As I will show, journalists, advocacy groups, and critics promoted a ‘strategic causalism’ to strengthen the connection between Meta platforms and specific social harms. This was contrasted by the ‘strategic ambiguity’ mobilised by Meta spokespersons to undermine such claims and disperse their responsibility to other actors (e.g. users, malicious actors). The analysis highlights a US-centric theatre of accountability that overlooks crucial issues from the actual disclosures, revealing the asymmetries and displacements when platforms are put on trial.