Thread by @jason_kint

wow, another order for Mark Zuckerberg to sit for another court deposition. This time in a case involving privacy violations with ingesting web-wide health data. Remember they paid billions in cases to try to avoid this. Data and privacy issues are especially sensitive. /1

Zuckerberg depositions are interesting as they often go on for hours with highly informed attorneys driving for answers. And those answers may be put up against the often questioned veracity of his answers to Congress. Yes, as a CEO, he has testified to Congress A LOT. /2

I think his first real depo was SEC on very sensitive data scandal leading to $5B+ settlements with FTC+SEC. That scandal is still playing out in courts (did he overpay to protect himself?) It took 3yrs to get unsealed after I caught it in a footnote. /3

Most of his depos become an effort to narrow the scope of questions and discovery in advance. Especially around past data scandals. FTC and private antitrust suits in 2023 tricky. But in the last few months this all seems to be cornering him and making it as tricky as ever. /4

And sometimes it's about Meta's future. A good example, Zuckerberg sat for a deposition 12/17/24 right before plaintiffs were able to assemble evidence adding new allegations that Meta was torrenting known pirated data in order to train its AI model (LLaMA) with MZ awareness. /5

But I still believe the DE lawsuit creates the most sensitivity for him. He sat for a very limited depo on alleged overpayments to bury data scandals. Court then ordered him to sit again for multiple days in March 2025. Trial is a few months away. /6

which brings me back to first tweet. Always a big deal when Zuckerberg is ordered to sit and answer questions. Especially around data and privacy. The private lawsuits after Cambridge Analytica were settled when things got too hot. Nearly $1B in settlements. Let's see here. /7