Thread by @jason_kint

Dear press: Facebook comms is deceiving you (again) on these data leaks (see the 530mil last week). I encourage you not to agree purely to their OTR or background terms. Think Kellyanne Conway deception. No executive time / exclusives are worth it if the job is informing public.

eg 530mil leak, Facebook pushed out deceptive info on background to press. I’ve been asking @CaseyNewton for a week to fix this important error in his initial and influential report, respectfully provided explanation and an independent researcher’s contact info to explain to him.

A week later Facebook has watched the story die. Of course, that was their strategy and it leaked in the press today. BBC covered this earlier today, comms accidentally forwarded an internal email on how to characterize it as scraping of public information.

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1384486091911319552

Anyone who wants to actually get the facts straight, again, this is akin to giving one million nine digit numbers to a financial services firm and getting back a list of names of people who have them as social security numbers. That’s not public informaiton. That’s not scraping.

Special hat tip to the press that attended the briefing with the researchers and therefore avoided publishing Facebook’s misleading spin. I saw WSJ, NBC News, Politico, Wired, Bloomberg, NYT, and many others in attendance. Arguably more important than a session with Zuckerberg.

Here is a thread with relevant sections of the transcript if you’re wanting to understand the 530 million record leak and why Facebook’s answers are so misleading. Also happy to talk or connect you to the researchers.

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1384542844317323265

And one last point, I’m not intending to criticize any individual journalist, especially any freelancers trying to make a living, just pointing out Facebook isn’t an honest actor and providing them access doesn’t serve the public in a time of great consequence. 🙏🏽 for listening.