On Wednesday afternoon, The New York Times published a blockbuster report—with five bylines, 50 sources, and 5,000 words—on the failures of Facebook’s management team during the past three years. It begins with Sheryl Sandberg yelling at one of her employees; it ends with her notes to self, captured by a photographer, as she sat before the Senate: “Slow, Pause, Determined.” The story, in other words, is not very flattering (and you should definitely read it) We did, and we have six follow-up questions that merit more investigation.

1) What is Sandberg’s future at Facebook?

For most of the social media company's history, Sandberg has avoided criticism. During the past year, most of the anger at Facebook has been directed at Zuckerberg. That has started to change recently. The Wall Street Journal reported, for example, on a “swat team” that Sandberg runs, tasked with identifying and preventing future catastrophes. The Times story, though, is the first to cast her as the central antagonist.

It was Sandberg, the story says, who seethed after security executive Alex Stamos (who later left the company) disclosed to a Facebook board committee that the extent of Russian interference was still unknown and unchecked. It was Sandberg who chastised Stamos for devoting time and effort to look into the Russian campaign without company approval. It was Sandberg who sided with Joel Kaplan, vice president for public policy, about leaving the Russians out of its white paper on election interference, and it was Sandberg who encouraged Stamos to be less specific in his initial posting about Russia’s propaganda campaign. Sandberg appealed to Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Democrat from Minnesota, to dial down her attacks on Facebook. And Sandberg was the one who came out in support of the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, a decision the Times asserts was motivated in part to make other tech giants like Google look bad.

In a post responding to the newspaper, Facebook rejects that assertion. “Sheryl championed this legislation because she believed it was the right thing to do, and that tech companies need to be more open to content regulation where it can prevent real world harm,” the company wrote.

The question now is whether the woman charged with solving Facebook’s hardest problems has caused a few too many of her own.

2) What other tech company has been hiring an opposition group to smear Apple?

One of the more extraordinary parts in the report involves an opposition research group called Definers Public Affairs, run by Matt Rhoades, a former campaign manager for Mitt Romney. The firm also employs Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Jeb Bush and a contributor to Crooked Media, the company that runs Pod Save America. Facebook hired Definers to look into the funding of the company’s critics.

During this period, a conservative news website called NTK Network, which the Times says is affiliated with Definers, published a number of stories critical of Apple. But, in the Times report, Miller also says that Definers’ Apple work is funded by a third technology company. In other words, Facebook paid Definers; Facebook was fighting Apple; Definers wrote stories critical of Apple; but another technology company was paying for those stories.

Facebook ended its contract with Definers on Wednesday evening, shortly after the Times story was published. However, the company defended its work with the research firm. “The New York Times is wrong to suggest that we ever asked Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook’s behalf—or to spread misinformation,” the company wrote in its response. “Our relationship with Definers was well known by the media—not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf.” And yet, despite the public nature of the relationship, a Facebook spokesperson couldn’t say for sure whether Zuckerberg and Sandberg were aware of Definers’ involvement.