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Facebook Dilemma, The: Part One 1x54

The promise of Facebook was to create a more open and connected world. But from the company’s failure to protect millions of users’ data, to the proliferation of “fake news” and disinformation in the U.S. and across the world, mounting crises have raised the question: How has Facebook’s historic success as a social network brought about real-world harm? From FRONTLINE, The Facebook Dilemma (2×54 HD)is the most in-depth investigation of the powerful social media platform’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world. Drawing on dozens of original interviews and rare footage, this major, two-part television event investigates a series of warnings to Facebook as the company grew from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room to a global empire.

In The Facebook Dilemma (2×54 HD), producers James Jacoby and Anya Bourg (War on the EPA) and Dana Priest, a Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post reporter and professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill School of Journalism, trace how the company failed to respond effectively to warnings from both inside and outside Facebook about everything from potential privacy violations, to “fake news,” to fomenting division and violence across the globe.  FRONTLINE producers interviewed on-camera more than a dozen former and current Facebook employees for the film. The documentary finds that multiple warnings about the platform’s negative impact on privacy and democracy were eclipsed by the company’s relentless pursuit of growth — and its users’ data.

Part One: FRONTLINE investigates the early warnings about Facebook’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world. Dozens of original interviews and rare footage show how the company faced claims of misuse while becoming an unprecedented global power.

Click here to screen The Facebook Dilemma: Part Two.