Frontline’s Facebook documentary sheds new light on company’s mistakes

“I realized that because I didn’t have people’s information I needed to make it interesting enough so people would want to use the site and want to, like, put their information up.”

That’s the explanation a very young Mark Zuckerberg, clutching a beer-filled Solo cup in one hand, gave in response to a question about the social network’s beginnings. 

Though perhaps not the most surprising thing Facebook’s founder has ever uttered, it’s an extremely telling statement that might make you question how you use Facebook. It’s also the opening scene from Frontline’s new investigation into the social network: The Facebook Dilemma.  

The first of the two-part series airs tonight on PBS, but Frontline gave me the opportunity to watch an early version of the series’ first hour and it definitely sheds new light on the company and its many mistakes, even for seasoned Facebook observers. 

After opening with some clips of a much younger (and much less guarded) Zuck, the documentary wastes no time in getting to the point. How did Facebook go from Zuckerberg’s dorm room project to the social media behemoth that’s routinely compared to a global “surveillance system?” And has the company’s mission to “connect the world” done more good than harm?

These questions aren’t necessarily easy to answer, and Frontline spent more than a year trying to get to the bottom of them with dozens of interviews with current and former employees, as well as other experts who have asked the same questions over the years.

I won’t spoil any of the details, some of which may be familiar to those who have followed the company closely for some time. What quickly becomes clear, though, is that Facebook — for all its talk about simply being too naive to anticipate the myriad of ways anyone could take advantage of it — is that there were people trying to raise the alarm throughout its history. 

And, whether you’re team #deleteFacebook or not, it’s impossible to deny the colossal costs of its screw-ups.