Yaël Eisenstat: 'Facebook is ripe for manipulation and viral misinformation'

The ex-CIA officer on why she lasted only six months at the tech giant and her fears about its role in the forthcoming US election

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Yael Eisenstat was a CIA officer for 13 years and a national security adviser to vice president Joe Biden. Between June and November 2018, she was Facebook's global head of elections integrity operations, business integrity.

Before you were hired by Facebook to investigate the company's effect on the electoral process, what was your opinion of it?
Early on, I was a big fan of Facebook. I had lived and worked all over the world, so I used it to stay connected to friends. But, in 2015, I started becoming incredibly concerned that it was becoming a real threat to democracy because of the role it was playing in the breakdown of civil discourse.