what a week for Facebook, Attorney General Racine's complaint just posted to the docket with Mark Zuckerberg now added as a defendant. This was widely reported last week but interesting to see (and not see). /1
By "not see," I mean there is a ton of redactions specific to Zuckerberg presumably tied to the limited discovery they've been able to do so far. As part of this, DC will increase its press to depose and do discovery on Zuckerberg, something FTC failed to do. /2
It seems something was more recently discovered that increased their interest in going for the king. /3
A reminder on the case, it involves a cover-up that involved misleading the public, the press and political leaders. None of this is in doubt at this point, it's really a matter of being able to complete discovery and get to the courts vs settle which Facebook will aim to do. /4
The core case in the cover-up was the Cambridge Analytica scandal which the AG complaint reminds involved allowing CA to use the Facebook platform to influence and manipulate the 2016 presidential election despite knowing they had improperly purchased Facebook data. /5
And yes, that data was *sold* to Cambridge Analytica. AG describes it accurately in the complaint. I reiterate this as last night @profcarroll was sharing frustration in the press re-writing history by softening from the term "sale" which I entirely agree is a problem. /6
Here is the AG @AGKarlRacine on CNN last week discussing adding Zuckerberg to the lawsuit. /7
That's all on this one. It also relates to the FTC lawsuit and a few complaints filed in Delaware which were able to get hold of communications between the board and Facebook leadership. More down these threads... /8
Woah. Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Facebook, just sanctioned by Delaware judge for deleting emails ahead of trial this spring. This is the state pension shareholder case alleging the company overpaid the FTC and SEC in $5B+ settlements in order to protect Zuckerberg. /1
Long after the books had been inspected and many lawsuits had played out, it was disclosed last year she had a personal Gmail account under a pseudonym that may have been used for relevant communications. /2
The Judge here calls her a "high sophisticated individual." He probably doesn't know about the 2018 NYT report on how she carved out these issues in her Senate Intel testimony or how their lawyers were sanctioned on related discovery in California. /3
wow. This AI lawsuit against Facebook keeps getting worse as they reluctantly unseal documents on Court orders.
Check out this allegation. Not only two hrs before discovery cut-off but the Friday before we now know Mark Zuckerberg was deposed... /1
Here is the bit from the newly filed and now unsealed third amended complaint. Allegations here Facebook used torrenting to download a pirated dataset to train LLaMA thereby also "seeding" pirated content globally. This is a BFD. /2 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
In fact, it can be criminal so this count is in the third amended complaint and the state attorney general (hello, @AGRobBonta) should note these allegations here. As it relates to this case, it may also break their privilege claims since it alleged to further a crime. /3
wow. Upon Court order, incriminating exhibits were unsealed at 3:30am in an AI lawsuit against Meta. Once past a 'fake privilege,' it appears Zuckerberg approved the use of a highly controversial, pirated dataset.
Note OpenAI, too? AI companies with no ethics or guardrails. /1
Here they acknowledge risk in media coverage, and massive EU fines, if "we have used a dataset we know to be pirated." So then you ask yourself the question, did they actually know it was pirated and use it? I uploaded docs - . /2 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
To that question, here is how the internal project manager describes the dataset. Note the line (these are all my yellow highlights), "when sourced from copyrighted materials without the permission of copyright holders." /3
woah. This Friday? Too much moving on court dockets so I will surface for you. This matters, in this mega-Facebook case, as highly respected Chenault was Chairman of Facebook's board during its biggest scandals. WSJ reported he left board after disagreements with Zuckerberg. /1
Here is the report on his departure, it includes reports of disagreements with Peter Thiel, too, over elections policies and "clashes" over moderation policies.
Btw, highly relevant to the last 24hrs of news. /2 wsj.com/articles/chena…
Moving on, Zuckerberg has also been noticed for deposition after "alleged wrongdoing on a truly colossal scale." He was already deposed last month in Hawaii for 7hrs. I would expect SEC closely compares transcripts to their 2019 depo which @zamaan_qureshi managed to unseal. /3
Here is how NYT reported it in the complaint. Google and Facebook suggested it was misrepresented. Their proxies have misled public into thinking it was dismissed from lawsuit despite Google's CEO being deposed about it only months ago. /3 nytimes.com/2021/01/17/tec…
woah. ~300 redacted summary judgment google exhibits posted in TX. I've uploaded all. most eye-popping - we finally get Google-Facebook contract (aka Jedi Blue) alleged as bid rigging (yes, press was misled, it's still part of the claims). /1
If you need a definition for Match Rate, Google and Facebook include it with example of using the "encrypted blob" on mobile, feels very much like a fingerprint y'all. Here is the full contract, don't sleep on section dealing with monopoly enforcement. /2 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
There are a ton of new exhibits from discovery with similar themes of Google secretly using projects to manipulate its black box auctions. "The first rule of Bernanke is we don't talk about Bernanke." /3