Facebook’s security chief to depart role over company’s handling of misinformation

Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief information security officer, will shift roles at the company. His transition will come in the wake of disagreements with other Facebook executives like COO Sheryl Sandberg about how to investigate and disclose Russian activity on the platform, The New York Times reports, citing employees of the social network. Stamos advocated for greater disclosure. Prior to his hiring at Facebook in 2015, Stamos was Chief Information Security Officer at Yahoo.

Personnel on Stamos' security team—which previously numbered 120 but is now down to three—are being gradually transferred to the product and infrastructure divisions within Facebook, under his supervision. The NYT report suggests that this has been part of his responsibilities since December, when his normal day-to-day responsibilities as CSO were reassigned. He was asked by Facebook to stay through August for optics.

Stamos is currently working in a new role in the company. "I'm currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security," he tweeted. He has not commented on any future plans to depart the organization entirely—a tweet clarifying his role after The New York Times report did not dispute the report's claim that he is leaving Facebook in August.