It was another terrible day for Facebook and the company had dispatched Campbell Brown, its head of news partnerships, to do some damage control.

In mid-March, Ms. Brown took the stage at a conference in New York about the future of the media industry. In front of a room full of editors and advertising executives, she immediately faced a question about Facebook’s latest scandal: The company had sent a letter to The Guardian threatening a lawsuit if the newspaper published a massive report on the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica’s improper harvesting of the data of millions of the social network’s users.

“If it were me, I would have probably not threatened to sue The Guardian,” Ms. Brown said, with a Southern lilt in her voice and the easy charm of a onetime broadcast anchor. “Probably not our wisest move.”

Some in the audience shot surprised glances at one another. That Ms. Brown was so willing to buck Facebook’s tightly controlled messaging — and do it in the middle of a news cycle that kept getting worse — made some wonder if she had gone rogue.