A leaked memo from a Facebook executive has described the consequences of the company’s growth-at-all-costs mentality. BuzzFeed on Thursday published a June 2016 memo by Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, who currently leads the company’s hardware division, in which Bosworth says he wants “to talk about the ugly” aspect of the company’s work.

“We connect people. Period,” Bosworth wrote. “That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.”

Bosworth distanced himself from his comments. “I don’t agree with the post today and I didn’t agree with it even when I wrote it,” he said on Twitter. “The purpose of this post, like many others I have written internally, was to bring to the surface issues I felt deserved more discussion with the broader company.”

The post was controversial internally, BuzzFeed reported. Among those who disagreed with its language was CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who told the outlet: “Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly. We’ve never believed the ends justify the means.” Zuckerbeg continued: “We recognize that connecting people isn’t enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people closer together. We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year.”

The memo immediately stirred discussion on Twitter. Former software engineer Alec Muffett, who worked on security issues at the company, said the company’s growth obsession — notably its decision to build a censorship tool in hopes of gaining access to the Chinese market — led him to quit the company.

The leaking of Bosworth’s post comes two weeks into the scandal over data privacy created by revelations that data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly gained access to as many as 50 million user profiles.

Bosworth’s post undeniably uses blunt language. Discussing the negative effects of connecting people globally, he writes: “Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.”

It’s ugly to read, but it also stands in stark counterpoint to a popular strain of Facebook criticism which holds that the company’s “move fast and break things” ethos is driven by an executive team that acts without considering its effect on the broader world. For better and for worse, the Bosworth memo shows the company reckoning with its unintended consequences and the ethics of its behavior — even before the 2016 election that caused so many of Facebook’s current problems.

Bosworth deleted his internal post shortly after it was revealed to BuzzFeed, a source familiar with the matter told The Verge.

Update, 7:12 p.m.: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that Bosworth deleted the post.