It wasn’t very long ago that Germans lived with networks of spies and informants in their country—the Stasi in East Germany and the Gestapo before that. As a result, they have a fundamental suspicion of anyone who wants to gather lots of personal information—which of course is Facebook’s business model. Where others see a website that’s good for wasting time, Germans see a comprehensive surveillance tool that needs muscular oversight. This instinctive and deeply held wariness of a technology company centralizing and processing vast amounts of personal information raises questions that Facebook has never had to answer, certainly not to a government. Germany, prescient because of its history, can see around corners.

She’s replaced by Joel Kaplan. It isn’t a complete surprise. Joel, the former Bush aide, is coming from the role of vice president for US policy. Plus, he’s Sheryl’s ex-boyfriend, and by now I’ve realized that Facebook’s leadership includes a web of people all entangled as bridesmaids, best friends, neighbors, and exes. Their fealty is seemingly to each other, their tribe, ahead of any ideology or anything else. Their pasts, presents, and futures are all deeply intertwined in a way that mine are not. They hire each other for jobs with big salaries, responsible for each other’s promotions and bonuses. A tiny enmeshed group of people increasingly responsible for shaping the attention of billions. Their preferences turned into policy.

No one in that group, other than me and my Australian team, seems surprised that Facebook made an advertising deck like this. One person messages the group, “I have a very strong feeling that she [the Australian staffer who prepared the deck] is not the only researcher doing this work. So do we want to open a giant can of worms or not?” And they’re right. At first, we think the leaked document is one Facebook made to pitch a gum manufacturer to target teenagers during vulnerable emotional states. Then eventually the team realize, no, the one that got leaked was for a bank. There are obviously many decks like this.