Sent as an email newsletter Sunday, October 10, 2021. Want in? Join my email list.
👋 Hi friends,
Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.
Image of the week, above: Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, testified before Congress Tuesday.
So: A lot has happened since my last dispatch, on September 22, which I sent after the initial batch of stories in our Facebook Files series ran.
I wanted to devote this edition of Newley’s Notes to share some notable developments since then, though you may have seen several. Here goes, in roughly chronological order:
1) 📸 Instagram said it is pausing its project for kids.
2) 🗞 Facebook argued that we mischaracterized its internal findings in our Instagram article; we published several of the documents that formed the basis of that piece.
3) 📱 My colleagues Georgia Wells and Jeff Horwitz published another piece in the series. The headline: Facebook’s Effort to Attract Preteens Goes Beyond Instagram Kids, Documents Show.
4) 👉 Members of a Senate panel grilled Facebook’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis.
5) 📺 Then Haugen appeared on “60 Minutes.” Worth a watch, if you haven’t seen the segment.
6) ✍️ And don’t miss Jeff’s profile of Haugen.
7) 🎧 Also excellent: Haugen on The Journal podcast.
8) 🗣 Another good podcast: Jeff speaks with CNN’s Brian Stelter, on Reliable Sources, about how he first met Haugen and the stories came about.
9) 🏢 We ran another piece in the Facebook Files series. The hed: Is Sheryl Sandberg’s Power Shrinking? Ten Years of Facebook Data Offers Clues.
10) 👏 And finally, a lighthearted moment: On “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert joked about Jeff sporting a headband during TV interviews.
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Normal editions of NN will resume soon!
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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,
Newley