Facebook has just suffered its most devastating PR catastrophe yet | Siva Vaidhyanathan

We must demand that Facebook tell the full, unvarnished truth. Fortunately for us, the public, the truth tends to come through despite Facebook officials' best efforts to obscure it

Imagine what it's like to work at Facebook this week. For about five years much of the world has slowly turned against the service that once promised to connect the world and spread democracy and cookies and puppies and such. But this week, in the wake of revelations of serious malfeasance and moral irresponsibility by Facebook's leaders, it must be unbearable to face friends and family, even distant Facebook friends.

In recent days, Frances Haugen, a former member of Facebook's civic integrity team", has launched a deft and professional public assault on the company. Unlike previous Facebook whistleblowers, like former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, Haugen managed to capture the interest and attention of policy leaders and journalists around the world. We have to ask why Haugen has had so much traction and impact when Zhang, who was fired for raising objections within the company to Facebook's human rights problems, did not.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy