The Power of the Powerless

The Social Reckoning: Frances Haugen On What Facebook Knew & Why She Came Forward

The Rich Roll Podcast, 15 October 2026. The book comes up at 1 hr 14 min in.

A speaker — appearing throughout the episode to be Frances Haugen — says their own book opens with a quote from Vaklov Havel's The Power of the Powerless, then explains Havel's central argument: the Soviet Union became a 'post-totalitarian' state that ruled by ideology rather than force, so that when someone spoke out, the ideology simply healed around them. The speaker uses this idea to encourage the belief that change is still possible even in systems designed to absorb dissent.

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