Finally. Here in SEC docs is what Facebook has painfully avoided public knowing and press has mostly missed documenting. Facebook data was ****SOLD**** to Cambridge Analytica. Can everyone please now say that Facebook personal data was sold rather than captured, transferred, etc?
"Moreover, when asked by reporters in 2017 about its investigation into the Cambridge Analytica matter, Facebook falsely claimed the company found no evidence of wrongdoing, thereby reinforcing the misleading statements in its periodic filings."
"Facebook did not disclose..,.until March 16, 2018, when the company— for the first time—publicly acknowledged on its website that it had learned of the violation of its policy in 2015. The price of Facebook shares declined substantially following the company’s disclosure."
2 things here. I believe SEC report documents Zuckerberg's misleading testimony about how diligently they reacted upon press. This is one of Facebook's greatest deceptions in intentions with the cover-up. ps CA certification wasn't similar to Kogan's.
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson This begs the question what was the purpose of the 2012 FTC Consent Decree and the audits being done every other year by PWC??? 7 years and this is how this plays out?
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson OMG, THERE IT IS. The FTC settlement is a distraction. The key report is the SEC report. Attempted whistleblowers knew prior to Guardian report, they were ignored and Facebook continued to take $ from "sketchy (to say the least) data modeling company” for political advertising.
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson I don't say this lightly. Compare this answer by CEO Zuckerberg to @USRepMikeDoyle to the relevant section of the SEC settlement. I would have examined the stock sales of every insider aware during this period including officers/directors.
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle Woah this was 12 days before US elections. Facebook employees knew stuff was going on but their DC office appears to have frozen them. Consumers were deceived and harmed through their personal data likely in order to protect Facebook's reputation and share price.
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle "Although several employees in Facebook’s legal, policy, and communications groups who attended these meetings during the relevant period were aware of the researcher’s improper transfer of data to Cambridge, that incident was never discussed."
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle "Facebook knew, or should have known, that its Risk Factor disclosures in its annual reports on Form 10-K for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, ...as incorporated into its Form S-8 registration statements, were materially misleading."
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle "During the relevant period, Facebook received approximately $29m in cash proceeds from the exercise of employee stock options. Facebook also granted restricted stock units to more than 17,000 new employees..."
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle Here is the part where Facebook (after covering up incident for nearly 2 1/2 years) burnt The New York Times and Guardian by preempting their reporting once they had dutifully come to Facebook for comment on their findings.
@SenWhitehouse@SenBillNelson@USRepMikeDoyle@AllMattNYT@carolecadwalla by the way, this is the "certification" between the CEO of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. The red arrow is mine pointing to language which makes this agreement almost meaningless beyond the fact Facebook didn't sign it.
@AGKarlRacine Time to bump a few important docs back up for a reality check. SEC complaint says Kogan told Facebook in June 2016 he had sold 30 million underlying records to a political operative. (1) seems obvious Facebook accelerated its cover-up at that point after 6+ months of deflection.
@AGKarlRacine Interesting timing as Kogan told FB this in June 2016 and he then signed an agreement with Facebook on June 24 which happened to be the result date of the Brexit Referendum. It was quite an agreement to review when it surfaced at @CommonsCMS. p19-33 parliament.uk/documents/comm…
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS at minimum, this is why Facebook's top EU policy exec testifying in Feb 2018 CA didn't have FB data 1 month before global press attention was beyond ridiculous having been told in June 2016 30mm records had been sold to CA. @carolecadwalla is right, we prob should say he lied.
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla side note, the May 2018 @CommonsCMS correspondence was a valuable written exchange. Source of many new details and some of their best obfuscations. It came during time of pressure for Zuckerberg to testify. He ultimately danced through Brussels instead. parliament.uk/documents/comm…
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla and routing this thread back to another old one where I list a lot of the obfuscations... and probably connect to another thread of evidence. my timeline is a Facebook rabbit hole. So were their practices.
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla Remember when Facebook famously went dark for five days after Cambridge Analytica scandal broke globally? I'm rewatching CEO Zuckerberg's first highly promoted CNN exclusive interview to compare to the SEC report yesterday. I've cued the spot for you.
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla Put aside that Zuckerberg testified under oath and answers here that Facebook first learned from The Guardian report, I'm having trouble with "as far as we understood around the time of that episode there was no data out there." Yellow highlights are mine.
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla Now reviewing Kogan's testimony where he testified to @SenJohnThune:
- Facebook visited Kogan in Sept 2015 and were told about his selling of data.
- His "equal partner" disclosed what they were doing during his job interview with Facebook (note: he was hired 11/9/15)
@AGKarlRacine@CommonsCMS@carolecadwalla@SenJohnThune just in, Facebook response to DC request, in light of SEC filing, to unseal internal emails showing FB had awareness of Cambridge Analytica problems earlier than Zuckerberg told Congress. When reports of emails surfaced, FB said they were about a different "scraping" incident.
+1 for lawmakers not willing to get rolled, misled or lied to by Facebook. Parliament asks for an explanation by Aug 12th why last week’s “SEC Complaint seemingly directly contradicts oral and written evidence”
New update from Facebook v DC. They're still working incredibly hard to keep internal email chain sealed which reports to show prior knowledge of Cambridge Analytica. In worst case, it may also lead to perjury or securities issues for Facebook officer(s).
woah. a deeply concerning internal Google doc just unsealed in US DOJ vs Google (adtech antitrust trial seven weeks from now).
Smells like bid rigging.
Translation (by me):
Red = bad for Google
Green = good for G
'Levels playing field' = helps G
'fairer competition' = helps G /1
at the very least, demonstrates the conflict of interest with having significant market power on both sides. here is a Google doc roadmapping these changes to their auctions from the buy-side and the sell-side ahead of analyzing the impact and mitigating outcry. /2
for example, here is what looks to be Google analyzing what would happen to their biz when they removed "Last Look" which gave Google a significant advantage after an ad auction had been run. Don't miss the Green at bottom. /3
more news yesterday in flurry of activity in lawsuit vs Facebook for (over)paying FTC $5B to protect Zuckerberg. Big names involved. Board records inspection shows who's who in 'approval' - everyone now gone except Zuckerberg, Andresseen and Alford. Gets interesting quickly... /1
Yes, Andreessen joined Thiel in politics with full-throated endorsement of Trump with close allies. Alford was CFO of Chan Zuckerberg right before approval. WSJ reported Chenault and Zients (important: now Biden's chief of staff) stepped down over disagreements with Mark Z. /2
So what's happening. Well, first in April 2024 all of these prior and current board members were served in the lawsuit. Again, this is based on a prior records inspection of non-privileged board documents and the Court at that point deciding to allow the case to move forward. /3
Friday night KA-boom. In adtech antitrust lawsuit against Google, court has ordered the state AGs may depose Google co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai. Huge. /1
So the two cited reasons Pichai will be deposed (although not all of them) are incredibly sensitive. 1), “Jedi Blue,” the alleged collusion with Facebook that everyone wrongly wrote off back earlier in this lawsuit. Google CEO Pichai met directly with Facebook CEO Zuckerberg. /2
A reminder the Google and Facebook deal (aka the “NBA” or “Jedi Blue”) is also in a private antitrust suit against Facebook. The deal was signed by the lieutenants of the CEOs (Sheryl Sandberg for Facebook). /3
US v Google flooded docket (103 filings!) over weekend as Court said Friday...hey now, let's skip summary judgment, this baby is going to trial. Much is companies trying to keep their secrets sealed but we get a sense for the witnesses. And a small taste of evidence to come. /1
On the companies filing to keep their secrets sealed which they mostly provided under subpoena, it's a mix of adtech, agencies, platforms, you name it. /2
We also learn some glossary items which likely come up:
'RASTA' - Google's tool to evaluate new 'launches' (aka changes) in ad serving system, runs on live traffic
'Ariane' - identifies and summarized launches
'Launch' - creative name (lol), it replaced Ariane in 2020/2021 /3
SCOTUS just posted order list. It granted cert to Facebook on its Cambridge Analytica matter. Only first question but that’s a huge one. Basically should Facebook have disclosed to shareholders what it started to cover up in 2015 rather than presenting risk as hypothetical? /1
Here is the actual first question as written. One immediate item, it’s outrageous if Justice Kavanaugh didn’t/doesn’t recuse seeing his reported best friend, Joel Kaplan, was directly involved in the matter and its cover up. He threw his SCOTUS confirmation party IIRC. /2
Here is a link into background. I strongly urge press not to overlook this or assume you know fact history. Over the years much has played out in coverup and much of the reporting has been bent towards Facebook’s spin. I am more than happy to point you to the court records. /3
“X has lost dozens of major advertisers under Musk’s ownership, with 74 out of the top 100 U.S. advertisers from that month no longer spending on the platform as of May.” 1/4
Smart NBC report focusing on amplification, velocity and reach, “X isn’t living up to its own policies when it allows violent extremists to use the platform’s amplification features.” 2/4
“It’s not clear to what extent people at X were aware that the company was monetizing the extremist hashtags prior to NBC News’ reporting.” 3/4