“They told us a lot of stories inside the company about how people who leaked were narcissists. … And the reality is like people who talk to journalists are people who care enough about the company that they talk to journalists.”
The 404 Media Podcast · October 2026
The host asked Haugen whether Facebook really warned staff about particular reporters, as a new film about her shows. She recalls jokes inside the company that a few journalists must have had a login, given how steady their scoops were. Her reading is that constant leaking points to a deep problem in an organisation, since leaking is stressful and people don't want to do it.
Transcript
…had sources inside of the company. And this is the thing that I think would have been interesting for them to depict in the movie. But, you know, again, we have to make editing choices. There were people inside the company that actively wanted to come after me and cooler heads talked them down.
…internally at Facebook and Jeff has just gotten hired at the Wall Street Journal and they put his face up in a meeting being like, don't talk to this guy. And Brian was like, ask Francis if they actually do that. The sort of like, this journalist has been poking around or that sort of thing.
…people leak, it is a sign that there is a large systemic organizational problem in your company because people don't want to leak. Like it's stressful, right? Like they told us a lot of stories inside the company about how people who leaked were narcissists. You know, like the people who leaked were people who just wanted the attention and all they were doing was making their coworkers suffer. And the reality is like people who talk to journalists are people who care enough about the company that they talk to journalists.
We're not fun to talk to. It's true. It's true. No, it's high risk and it's very stressful. And that comes through in the movie as well. I mean, honestly, it's stressful for us. It's stressful for the sources. It's stressful for everyone involved.
And so it's one of these things where if you have a company and you're seeing it over and over and over and over again, like that should be a sign that something, something, something needs to be reevaluated. Like you should bring in some outside assistance to just evaluate what's going on…
I mean, it's also been my experience that often when people talk out, talk to the press, like things change. Maybe it's not the biggest change necessarily, but maybe they make a different decision. You did an interview recently where basically you said you think that we're a bit worse off, or…
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