Facebook VP reportedly told employees to brace themselves for 'more bad headlines'

(Image credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)

There might be more alarming Facebook headlines in the works — and the company is apparently steeling itself for that likelihood.

According to a post obtained by Axios, Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg told staffers Saturday that "we need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I'm afraid." Clegg warned that the new coverage would likely "contain mischaracterizations of our research, our motives and where our priorities lie," and told employees to "listen and learn from criticism when it is fair, and push back strongly when it is not," per Axios. "But, above all else," he wrote, "we should keep our heads held high and do the work we came here to do."

The social network has been slammed by negative press, as former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked damning internal company documents to both Congress and The Wall Street Journal, alleging the company knows and ignores the harm it causes, and chooses its financial bottom line "at all costs." Since then, Axios says, a group of 17 news outlets have come together to form the "Facebook Consortium" and report on those same leaked documents, now dubbed "The Facebook Papers." The Journal is not part of the consortium.

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The group's organizers reportedly "aimed to amplify findings from the leaked documents by having many news organizations report on them simultaneously, creating a big splash," writes Axios, likely explaining this weekend's Facebook news dump. And unfortunately for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, sources said the public can expect "much more reporting based off the documents in the coming days and weeks."

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.