There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.

I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

What does it mean to be a whistleblower? And how do we treat women who speak out against wrongdoing?

By now, you've probably heard of Francis Howgan. The former Facebook employee turned whistleblower,

who collected information for a series of exposés about the harm that Facebook has caused in our communities and around the globe.

My name is Francis Howgan. I used to work at Facebook. I joined Facebook because I think

Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us. But I'm here today because I believe

Facebook's products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.

This week, her findings will be rolled out in what's being called the Facebook Papers,

a series of coordinated stories in 17 different media outlets based on the internal documents

she photographed during her time working at Facebook. But Hougain isn't the first woman to blow

the whistle on Facebook. In September 2020, a year before Hogan spoke out, Sophie Zong, a woman of color who worked as a

data scientist at Facebook, uncovered that Facebook was slow to act or in some cases did nothing

at all about coordinated fake campaigns by foreign governments that were manipulating citizens

and destabilizing democracies. Only, when Sophie spoke up, she didn't get to testify before the Senate,

or go on 60 minutes to tell the world what she'd found. And in some cases, media outlets didn't

even refer to her as a whistleblower, just some former employee. Sophie is the kind of person who would

rather be at home playing with her two cats than doing interviews.

But that hasn't stopped her.

She continues to speak up, including recently testifying before Parliament in the UK.

When a whistleblower speaks up, we all see the polished interviews and hear the snappy soundbites.

But Sophie wants people to know the reality.

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