Sheera Frenkel Profile Banner
Sheera Frenkel Profile
Sheera Frenkel

@sheeraf

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NYT Reporter and author of NYT Bestseller AN UGLY TRUTH, with @ceciliakang . Raising two kids and a cat in Oakland. Tell me a story: sheera.frenkel @nytimes .com

Oakland, CA
Joined February 2009
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
9 years
Everything has been hacked. We just don't know about it yet.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Was just on phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to evaluate extent of outage because their badges weren’t working to access doors.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
2 years
Just had the lovely experience of listening to my 4-year-old tell another kid what I do for work. "My mom talks to people and then she writes down their stories, but they have to be real, not pretend. There are no mermaids."
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
5 years
Just to recap: after initially calling our story inaccurate, (and internally calling it “false”), Facebook has now confirmed most, if not all of our reporting. They just waited until eve of Thanksgiving when they thought as few as possible people would be reading.
@nytimes
The New York Times
5 years
"Did we ask them to do work on George Soros? Yes." Facebook took responsibility for hiring a lobbying company that pushed negative stories about Facebook’s critics.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
SCOOP with @MikeIsaac , Facebook employees are staging a walkout today for the first time in the company's history. They are protesting the decision by Zuckerberg to allow Trump's post to stand:
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
In case anyone is wondering, online these far right movements are claiming victory. Even if they were quickly evacuated by police, the photographs of them freely roaming the halls of Congress are powerful optics they will use to recruit thousands to their cause.
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Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Here’s a story about what it took for me to appear on MSNBC this morning for five minutes to talk about my front-page story in the NYT. Or: Why it is so hard for working moms to have it all. (Thread)
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Sheera Frenkel
2 years
My god, the kicker to this New Yorker story.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
If you want to delete Facebook, go ahead. Just know that's a privilege. For much of the world, Facebook is the internet and only way to connect to family/friend/business. That's why its important to have a real discussion re Facebook's security/privacy issues.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
The storming of the capital hill was organized on social media. Time to stop acting like things said online don't translate into real-world action.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
5 years
NEW NYT INVESTIGATION: Internal documents show that Facebook gave, "Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.”
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
5 years
This story has been 6 months in the making. It started with a question: What happened inside Facebook over the last 3 years, and what did top executives, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, do in the wake of crisis after crisis battering the company?
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Thank you to the Facebook engineer who just sent me this message. (Shared with permission). "The blight that is QAnon is going to be on our hands forever. I am going to be apologizing to my kids for enabling these a**holes."
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Nothing like this has ever happened at Facebook. Employees always voiced dissent internally. Today's walkout is a sign that anger is spilling over, and that employees don't feel heard by Zuckerberg/Sandberg
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 months
This is why verification matters. This person/account is not an Al Jazeera journalist.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
8 years
So the DNC mocked my story about their bad cybersecurity in an email just leaked on Wikileaks... and scene.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Already this morning, some FB engineers have publicly quit. Many more are considering it. Zuckerberg is about to address FB, but there isn't much hope among employees that he will reverse course and take action against Trump's post. "He isn't built that way," one employee said
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Honestly, going to scream if one more cable pundit says they could not see this coming. PHONE LITERALLY ANY REPORTER COVERING QANON/FAR RIGHT MOVEMENTS.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
This is @clarissaward confronting one of the FSB operatives implicated in the attempted murder of @navalny . What a badass moment of awesome journalism.
@ioannZH
Ivan Zhdanov
3 years
CNN опубликовал полностью свой вариант расследования и вот момент, где они пришли в гости к убийце Олегу Таякину
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
It happened. Today I got an email from a PR company offering a man as a subject matter expert… on the book I wrote with @ceciliakang . Please, my dude, explain my book to me…
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
2 years
"No mermaids" might have to go on business cards, if I ever get around to getting new ones."
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Huh. Just had my third conversation in two days with an employee at FB who admires the position Twitter has taken, and is disappointed in Zuckerberg's response. Wonder if this will come up at the all-hands meeting today.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
We can write a thousand articles about how vaccines are effective in stopping the severity of Covid, and crucial towards curbing the pandemic for us all, but one tweet like this will be held up by millions who are trying to put off getting vaccinated.
@NICKIMINAJ
Nicki Minaj
3 years
They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now. In the meantime my loves, be safe. Wear the mask with 2 strings that grips your head & face. Not that loose one 🙏♥️
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
A thought I keep having is that it’s BS that states opened up restaurants/bars/etc before they figured out how to open schools. It tell us everything we need to know about how this country constantly makes it as hard as possible to have kids and be a working parent.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Journalists who follow the far-right, pro-Trump movement have been warning for weeks that January 6 had real potential for violence. Unbelievable that more wasn't done to secure the Capitol building ahed of these protests.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Facebook's head of the DC office, Joel Kaplan, and Kavanaugh are personal friends. That's why Kaplan is at the hearing. No one at Facebook knew he was going, and no one is happy that he is sitting front and center behind Kavanaugh.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
TikTok teens and K-pop stans are declaring victory tonight for a prank to register fake tickets at Trump's Tulsa rally. Collab with @TaylorLorenz and @Kellen_Browning
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
I’m not blaming the TV studios. They have slots to fill and the day’s news is often unpredictable. But this is just one example of how the system isn’t set up for moms, and why doing it all, at work and at home, is often a shitshow.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
PRETTY PLEASE: If you are a journalists/researcher jumping into reporting on the far-right this month, please follow the best practices of those who have been doing it for years. DO NOT post direct links or screen shots which show the name of the Telegram channel/Gab group/etc
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
This is misinformation. There are more than 3.6 million registered voters in Wisconsin. Look for yourself:
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
2 years
I just bought a multi-pack of at-home Covid antigen tests I spotted as a Black Friday deal. This moment encapsulates everything that is wrong with this year, the American healthcare system, and Black Friday.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Already, people inside Facebook are asking why Zuckerberg made this call when similar bans have not taken place in countries around the world where political leaders have used their platform to inflame and inspire mobs and protests. They are also asking why this took so long.
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Sheera Frenkel
1 year
Hate speech, homophobia, and anti-Semitism are all increasing on Twitter since Elon Musk took over. That’s what the most comprehensive data to-date is telling researchers, who say the worst may be yet to come. Story with @kateconger
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
I arrive in studio, and I get a miracle parking spot. (Pt #3 ) There is no makeup person, and even if there was, the makeup is all made for caucasians. The camerawoman sees my panic and buys me 2 minutes to slap on some of my own makeup. (Bless you camerawoman).
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
PSA: If you have the word "Christian" in your bio, you should not be sending me dick pics.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 years
~Personal News time~ After nearly 4 fantastic years at BuzzFeed, I'll be joining the New York Times covering cybersecurity out of SF.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
I woke up at 5AM to my 1-year-old melting down in her crib. When I got up to put her back to sleep, I saw 6 missed calls on my phone. A few TV networks were asking if I could come on air. Happenstance #1 - Had the kiddo not woken up, I would have never see these messages in time.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
And I’m on! It’s a story about Russia and the midterms, two subjects I know a lot about. I’ve written about them extensively, for the NYT and others. But because I’m a mom to a (young) kiddo, I often have to watch (male) colleagues go on to discuss my work.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Every group chat among my friends right now is discussing whose parents/grandparents got vaccinated and how. Everyone whose parents got a shot did so through their kids/grandkids repeatedly refreshing websites and ringing hotlines until they got a spot. What a broken system.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
2 years
Wow, if only there was a huge, public event today where all the celebrities were gathered under one roof, and someone could ask them their opinion on the Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe vs. Wade. #MetGala2022
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 years
Timeline is full of activists/journalists panicking that Signal was compromised. Not true. Short version: SIGNAL STILL THE SAFEST OPTION.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Just now on a call with reporters, Facebook refused to give direct answers to the following: -Have they already found efforts to disrupt midterms on FB? -Will they tell us which pages are being downranked for spreading disinfo on FB? - Does downranking a page actually work?
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 years
So... Last week Spicer called me to defend the use of Confide on his own phone... said it was a "private" matter
@emptywheel
emptywheel ceci n'est pas un checkmark
7 years
Spicer checks staffers devices for Signal and Confide, orders staffers not to leak about device check. It leaks.
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Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Welcome to our world.
@WSJ
The Wall Street Journal
6 years
Companies are providing more paternity leave, but many men worry that using it will hurt their careers
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
To be clear: We spoke to seven current and former Facebook employees for this story on how internal disputes over FB's role in spreading disinformation lead to the departure of Alex Stamos.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
My toddler this morning: Her: “Mama, make me dippy eggs.” Me: “ok, I thought your dad already made you eggs?” Her: “off a record, yours are better.” So yeah, work from home is going great.
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Sheera Frenkel
2 years
All of these parents had no negative views on vaccines before the pandemic. Now they are against all vaccine mandates, including ones they already got for their kids. Many spoke of losing all faith in the medical establishment.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Zuckerberg just did a call to discuss FB response to coronavirus. He said that to fight misinformation, FB is making sure ppl see info from trusted news outlets and orgs first. Soo... Facebook just realized answer to fighting misinfo was to promote the news industry?
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
I won't go on about this anymore because honestly, I've had a fun and relaxing weekend with my family, but opening my messages today it is insane how many referenced 6MWE. (6 million wasn't enough). I've seen it before but now feels different. When did it become this widespread?
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Most of the requests needed me in a TV studio by 6-7AM, which is pretty impossible for most working moms, unless they can afford live-in or round-the-clock help. Most daycares and nannies start between 8-9. So immediately, the morning shows were out.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Looking at the label Facebook just put on Trump’s misleading post about voting. Nothing about this label tells me that what Trump said is wrong. It actually looks like Facebook is building off Trump’s post and sending users somewhere to register to vote. How is this helping?
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
I was lucky, my mom was in town and could swing over on short notice. I told the networks I could make a show by 8:30, but it would need to be a studio near my house. Pt #2 - Had my mom not been in town, and a trooper, i probably wouldn’t have been able to do any of the shows.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
NEWS - Facebook has just announced its most sweeping action against QAnon to-date. The company has just removed 790 groups, and imposed restrictions on another 1,950.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Facebook's sweeping ban on QAnon today is important. QAnon uses militaristic language about itself and its followers because it sees itself as waging a war. The most fertile ground for its goal (new recruits) has been Facebook and Instagram.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Zuckerberg's announcement today has done little to stem the growing ad boycott against Facebook. Just hours after @MikeIsaac and I published this story, one of the biggest brands in the world, Coca-Cola, announced it was joining the boycott:
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
1 year
I am joining more than 1,100 of my colleagues at the NYT on strike tomorrow. Among national, business, and metro reporters, more than 90% of the desk is joining the strike. None of us wanted it to come to this, but two years is too long to wait for a fair contract.
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Sheera Frenkel
5 years
@facebook But like our story laid out, @facebook ’s strategy had been to delay, deny, and deflect. It appears you are doing exactly that in your response to our reporting.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
I can’t get this story out of my mind. Two Women Fell Sick From the Coronavirus. One Survived.
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Me, to the 3-year-old: Very soon there might be a woman as Vice President. It’s the first time this country will have a woman Vice President! Her: Why? Me: Because the vote is very close and it looks like she might win! Her: No, Why is she the first?
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Sheera Frenkel
7 years
When I was reporting on Russian disinformation in E. Europe one thing was consistent: they would find a schism in society & drive a wedge in
@NoahShachtman
Noah Shachtman
7 years
EXCLUSIVE: Russians used Facebook to organize anti-immigrant rallies on U.S. soil.
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Joseph Mercola just announced that he is removing all his blogs from his website. We profiled him last week, as the WH and others have cited a report which names as a top spreader of Covid misinformation.
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Sheera Frenkel
6 years
So now it is 7:30. Baby is nursed and dressed. Grandma is in place, and I’ve even managed to brush my teeth! MSNBC calls and tells me the studio is farther away then I thought, and my slot has been moved up from 8:30 to 8. I’m breaking the speed limit to get there.
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
East Bay folks- there are families from Afghanistan already arriving here. Check with your local orgs, including JFCS and IRC if you want to donate/help.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Can we just stop with the hot takes on the Beirut explosion? Most of you have no idea how to analyze an explosion and the few people who do are busy working right now.
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Sheera Frenkel
6 years
LOL to the PR person from a big tech company who thought they were on mute when they said, "Man, I hate that Sheera is good at her job." 💁
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Sheera Frenkel
7 years
Asked a US diplomat friend how he felt about the resignations at State and the Trump administration so far. His answer, "We are fucked."
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 years
Us diplomats say some local staff are now "embarrassed" to work for US embassies, and many local contacts no longer want to take meetings.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
@MikeIsaac Facebook employees organized this virtual walkout over the weekend. Employee taking part have taken the day off, and are posting in FB's internal systems that they stand in solidarity with the protest.
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Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Alex Jones had come back into the Senate Intel committee after confronting Rubio in the hallway. Can hear him speaking into his camera as he films behind me.
Tweet media one
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
7 years
Trump calls BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage" refuses a que from CNN, calling them fake news and... people in the room are clapping? WTF.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
5 years
@facebook We have already addressed this. Your post listing “inaccuracies” points to things we never wrote in our story. Ie, you write that Stamos and the security team were never stopped from investigating Russia. Our story never said they were.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
A new viral Covid misinformation video is doing crazy numbers on Facebook. In the 5 hrs since it posted it's racked up 13 million views and over 100K comments. It's currently one of the most-watched videos on FB, and it shows a group of doctors disputing the seriousness of Covid
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Basically, we all got very lucky that whoever was behind the Twitter hack today was not a very good criminal. They had control of Twitter accounts for some of the world’s most powerful public figures, and used it to make... roughly $300,000?
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Sheera Frenkel
2 years
I interviewed 27 parents across the US who adopted anti-vaccine positions during the pandemic, and heard strikingly similar stories of feeling left behind by the government and finding their way to online rabbit holes.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
It’s almost like every step Apple and other companies take to put more privacy options in the hands of users affects Facebook’s ability to make billions off of people’s private information?
@sarahfrier
Sarah Frier
4 years
Facebook says apps using its advertising network could see revenue drop 50 percent, now that iOS 14 will require users to opt in to sharing their device info.
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Excited to reveal the full cover of our book for the first time! We took a different direction for the blurbs. Please support @ceciliakang and I be pre-ordering!
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
2 years
Just a reminder that the @wirecutterunion is on strike. Clicking on any wirecutter links from today through Black Friday is crossing the picket line.
@nytimes
The New York Times
2 years
With an avalanche of early Black Friday promotions, @wirecutter separates the deals from the duds.
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Sheera Frenkel
2 years
Now, the parents have become one issue voters ahead of the midterms. Republicans and Democrats who once voted on party line are now seeking out candidates who promise no vaccine mandates of any kind.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
So today I attended my first zoom funeral. I know we are all figuring out this new world of digital connections but I can already tell you that there is a reason we gather together with our communities to bury our loved ones.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
I don’t get the sunscreen shaming? Also, it looks like he’s using zinc oxide which is coral reef-safe, and the responsible thing to do.
@nypost
New York Post
4 years
Mark Zuckerberg surfboards in Hawaii with way too much sunscreen
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Sheera Frenkel
2 years
BIG news! HBO is turning our book, An Ugly Truth, into a TV show! Can’t wait to see what @ayadakhtar and his team do with this.
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Sheera Frenkel
5 years
Just want to note: we asked for interviews with Zuckerberg and Sandberg for months before our story published. We asked for them again after we had read them into all the details we were going to publish. They never choose to speak to us.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
If your timeline feels like a bunch of Californians complaining about the smoke and heat and (earthquake?) today it’s because the full weight of the climate apocalypse we brought on ourselves feels especially real and frightening today.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Things that have happened this week: 1) The NYT broke the story about Trump’s $750 taxes. 2) The norm-breaking presidential debate. 3) The president announcing he and the First Lady have Covid. If you told me a month had passed since item #1 I would have believed you.
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Sheera Frenkel
5 years
No company has ever before been in such a position at the intersection of technology, politics, security and society. To report this story we interviewed more than 50 people. Most of what they told us has never been reported before.
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Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Conspiracy theory social media is going to be absolutely wild tomorrow.
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Sheera Frenkel
5 years
We did a no surprises call with Facebook before the story was published. It’s a basic (good) journalistic practice in which you let a company or person know a story is coming, and give them a chance to respond.... Facebook only fired Definers after the story came out.
@dseetharaman
Deepa Seetharaman
5 years
Q: how come you don’t know everything that was in the NYT story? A: I published a 4,500 word essay on our content-moderation policies so “I am very clearly involved in all the details” but can’t know everything going on here.
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Sheera Frenkel
1 year
Elon Musk just joined a Twitter spaces dedicated to reporters being banned/suspended from Twitter (by the inimitable @katienotopoulos ) but left just as journalists started to question his logic (namely, that the banned accounts weren’t sharing links to real-time location data)
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Sheera Frenkel
1 year
Tucker Carlson just went on Fox and claimed that 30% of voting machines in Maricopa, Arizona, didn't work (not accurate, it was printers) and that election officials didn't let people vote (not accurate). Story here on what actually happened:
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
10 years
This camel selfie is making the rounds and for good reason. If you only ever see one camel selfie, it should be this: http://t.co/wdeQQLrCc1
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Following our reporting on this, Instagram has removed the hashtag #jewsdid911 . It was active for years and had over 11,000 posts. It was one of the top search results if you searched for “Jews.” Why did it take our questions to get it removed?
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Sheera Frenkel
3 years
Hearing from Facebook sources that the company is blaming the release of our book, An Ugly Truth, for WH officials being fired up on Covid misinfo. Would love to take credit, but the truth is that the WH is looking at the facts and data on the role FB plays in spreading misinfo.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
4 years
Facebook just removed the post from @realDonaldTrump comparing Covid to the flu. Nearly 300,000 people liked the post in the hours before it was removed. This is the second time they have removed a post from his Facebook page, (which they say is actually run by his campaign).
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Sheera Frenkel
7 years
So many FBI/security officials reached tonight are refusing the comment. Say the situation is so crazy, they haven't processed it yet.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
6 years
Women everywhere are listening to Christine Blasey Ford's voice cracking and feeling their own hearts break, just a little bit more, at the world we’ve all inherited.
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