In the fall of 2021 a consultant named Arturo Bejar sent Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg an unusual note.

“I wanted to bring to your attention what l believe is a critical gap in how we as a company approach harm, and how the people we serve experience it,” he began. Though Meta regularly issued public reports suggesting that it was largely on top of safety issues on its platforms, he wrote, the company was deluding itself.