Claire Foy will star in a new drama about Facebook’s brutal rise to prominence, as high-powered platform executive Sheryl Sandberg.

Called Doomsday Machine, the show will be based on best-selling book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle For Domination and explore the relationship between Sandberg and the platform’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, and their roles in shaping the company.

Foy’s character arrived at Facebook from Silicon Valley neighbour Google, and is widely thought to have had a key role in the platform’s dominance – however, her work has not been without criticism and she has attracted controversy over the social media company’s methods.

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The show will portray events from 2016 amid the election of former US president Donald Trump, and look at the way in which “disinformation” penetrated Facebook.

It is also set to cover the company’s relationship with Instagram (which it owns) and its awareness of how the business posed a risk to the mental health of its younger users.

The announcement about the show comes at the end of a tumultuous week for the powerful tech company.

Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen testified in front of US politicians about her former employer, claiming that it put profit before safety, and knows that its platform is detrimental to the mental health of its users.

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Zuckerberg dismissed the claims, saying Ms Haugen’s allegations were “misrepresenting” the company’s work.

Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram also spent a significant part of Monday offline, after what the company called a “faulty configuration change”, meaning its 3.5 billion users were unable to send or receive messages for almost six hours.

Claire Foy is best known for her role in the early seasons of The Crown on Netflix, where she played a young Queen Elizabeth II at the start of her reign, wining an Emmy Award in the process.

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