Blow the Whistle Pitch Deck

Episode 1: Facebook Kills

Cold Open: “[Facebook] creates an incentive for major political figures to essentially commit a crime openly,” Sophie Zhang
The Crime: Facebook puts profits over safety and lies to its shareholders, thousands have died as its platform is repeatedly used by authoritarian governments to push disinformation, recruit fighters and raise money to support war crimes
The Witness: Joohn Choe, Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen
Gathering the Evidence: Open source information on Facebook and collected tens of thousands of Facebook’s internal documents by photographing computer screens
Blowing the Whistle: PProvided documents to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the SEC, the Justice Dept and the Treasury. Collectively have testified before Congress and around the world
The Retaliation: Zhang was fired, Choe lost his contract
Unsolved: Still developing

It’s summer in San Francisco and the air hangs heavy from the unusually warm weather. Wildfires have been ravaging Northern California. The skies are dark. The conversation currently taking place, even darker. Granted exclusive access, director Simon Edelman has gathered three whistleblowers: Joohn Choe, Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen for a roundtable to discuss the atrocities taking place at Facebook.

The Washington Post, the Guardian, BuzzFeed and the Wall Street Journal published investigative reports, made possible by their disclosures, offer the clearest picture thus far of how broadly Facebook’s problems are known inside the company, up to the chief executive himself. The evidence is bleak. Internal documents reveal that Facebook’s platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm to people both on and off the platform. Including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management that all came to the same conclusions, Facebook’s platform has ill effects. Sometimes even deadly.

Choe is visiting his mother in Berkeley, California and helping her in the kitchen. She’s preparing Korean barbecue, enough to feed a party of twenty, even though it's just the two of them. “It’s a blessing and curse having a Korean mother. My fridge is always over-stuffed,” Choe smiles.

Choe turns on his computer and opens a graph. The shocking graphic illustrates how Facebook’s platform was used by the Belarus government to identify, hunt and arrest critics of the government. It also illustrates how this activity was sharply escalating in the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Choe,”I decided to blow the whistle after Russia’s invasion. The evidence is there, Facebook is violating US sanction laws and accounts are pushing disinformation and helped Putin create a narrative to justify this war. Facebook is allowing it to happen. It’s disgusting. Thousands of people have died.”

Zhang sits down on her sofa and opens up a notebook. She pulls out the complaint she penned on the Facebook internal slack channel criticizing the company for allowing authoritarian leaders to create activity that manipulates their own citizenry. “That didn’t go over well with management,” Zhang laughs. She was fired from Facebook for exposing the platform's involvement in Honduras president, Juan Orlando Herandez’s 2017 fraudulent reelection. Hernandez used thousands of fake Pages on Facebook to boost disinformation.

Beachgoers crowd the coastline in San Juan, Puerto Rico seeking a respite from the oppressive heat. “No. There’s nothing to film. I’m not going to read it. Frankly, I don’t want to see it or read it or hear what anyone has to say. I didn’t do this for attention,” Haugen pauses for a minute. “I’m just...I’m just going to go surf.” In 2019, Haugen, a silicon valley veteran, was recruited to be the first Project Manager for Civic Integrity at Facebook. Within weeks it became apparent that something was terribly wrong. Senior management was more concerned with engagement ratings and competing with TikTok then the genocide taking place in Myanmar spurred on by its platform or the disturbingly high rate of teen suicide Instagram was causing.

All three whistleblowers came to the same conclusion, Facebook’s Civic Integrity department is a ruse. Time and again, despite its own pledges and numerous media exposés, Facebook didn’t fix any of its problems. Now it’s partly responsible for the war in Ukraine.