Sheera Frenkel

Sheera Frenkel is a cybersecurity and tech reporter for The New York Times. She focuses largely on social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram, and WhatsApp. She is interested in the dynamics within these companies and how their executives make decisions that impact billions of people. Additionally, she covers the ways in which social media can shift national conversations and change narratives, including misinformation, hate speech, conspiracies, trends, and viral campaigns.

Frenkel is also an author. She co-wrote the book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination" with her colleague Cecilia Kang, which became a New York Times and International best seller. The book was based on reporting Frenkel did for The Times on how the tech giant failed to protect people's data.

Prior to joining the New York Times, Frenkel spent a decade in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent from 2005 to 2015, reporting for BuzzFeed, NPR, The Times of London, and McClatchy Newspapers. Through this experience, she has developed a keen interest in how technology is being used to manipulate or influence people.

Over her career, Frenkel has received substantial professional recognition. In 2019, she was part of a team of Times reporters who were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Her work has also won the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Gerald Loeb Award for investigative reporting, and most recently, the Mirror Award in 2022 for reporting on misinformation.