Thread by @doctorow

Facebook just escalated its war on NYU's #AdObserver project, a project that monitors and discloses Facebook's failure to live up to its promise to block paid disinformation.

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Here's how that works. Facebook users volunteer to download and install Ad Observer, a browser plugin. This plugin scrapes the ads Facebook shows that user. They are cleaned of any personally identifying information and uploaded to the #AdObservatory.

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The Observatory is an archive that accountability journalists and researchers can mine to see whether FB is keeping its promises to label political ads and block paid disinformation. It's proof that FB does NOT live up to these promises.

pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sov…

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FB hates this. They threatened the NYU team with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, claiming that their violations of its terms of service violated this law (this is a gross overreach, and the law was since substantially narrowed by the Supreme Court):

pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aar…

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At the same time, they waged a disinformation war against the project, falsely claiming that it was collecting Facebook users' data. The plugin is free/open source software and numerous experts have audited it and shown this is not true.

https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1422995760396726273

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Which brings us to the latest salvo: FB has killed the accounts of Ad Observer's @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy, a move that severely restricts their ability to maintain Ad Observer and Ad Observatory.

techcrunch.com/2021/08/04/fac…

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The account terminations were accompanied by a renewed Facebook disinformation campaign that repeated the lie that Ad Observer was a privacy risk for FB users. It also repeated the lie that FB's own accountability archive was sufficient to monitor its anti-disinfo efforts.

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#Privacywashing is a cynical corporate tactic - when a company attacks its customers and critics in the name of privacy. Britons will remember the long years when companies justified brazen acts against their customers and justified by waving the Data Protection Act.

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Privacywashing has only grown more widespread since then, and is especially present in the ongoing debate over antittrust and interoperability.

eff.org/wp/interoperab…

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Every time a company like FB dumps dox on hundreds of millions of uses, they spin that into a reason they should have MORE control over our lives.

pluralistic.net/2021/04/05/zuc…

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The reality is disinformation is really profitable for FB. I am skeptical about how well paid disinfo really works, but it's clear that there are lots of rich people who are convinced that it works, and they pay FB millions to try their hand at it.

pluralistic.net/2020/12/11/num…

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The fact of the matter is that FB is a company whose profits depend on hiding all kinds of fraud and sleaze from the public. That's why they gutted Crowtangle, the tool that researchers relied on for insight into the platform.

pluralistic.net/2021/07/15/thr…

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The thing is, privacy IS very important, and we have to get it right. The worst part of privacywashing is that it discredits the very idea of privacy protection, makes people assume that every time they hear the word "privacy," they're about to be scammed.

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This is parallel to the weaponization of "health and safety" in the UK, where cynical operators cited ill-defined "health and safety" regulations to let them boss people around, sell bogus services, and carve out lucrative careers as consultants.

memex.craphound.com/2014/09/08/in-…

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The result was that the whole idea of safety regulation was put in bad odor, opening the door to all kinds of bad practices (including cladding tower-blocks in the kind of highly flammable materials that turned Greenfell into a charnel house).

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In attacking Ad Observer, Facebook isn't just shooting the messenger - they're poisoning the well, sabotaging real privacy measures. It's another shameful chapter in the sordid tale of a company that shouldn't exist.

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Image:
Japanexperterna.se (modified)
flickr.com/photos/japanex…

Minette Lontsie (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Face…

CC BY-SA:
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa…

Anthony Quintano (modified)
flickr.com/photos/quintan…

CC BY:
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.…

eof/

ETA - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/com…