This entire Washington Post report today is a must-read and once again deeply disturbing receipts on Facebook’s willingness to allow toxic sludge in order to maintain global scalability. It sure seems like they lied during the most significant external audit in their history. /1
Facebook even went to white people in the heart of deeply conservative America in order to establish content was objectionable. But even that apparently wasn’t enough to get Bickert+Kaplan to support that hate speech against the most vulnerable groups needed to be prioritized. /2
The “worst of the worst” may better describe the governance, executive leadership and policy team that protects Facebook’s toxic and harmful business model putting profits over democracy and civil societies. Andy Stone once again features in this report protecting Kaplan. /3
Here is Stone once again spreading misleading metrics which others regularly warn about onboarding and giving Facebook a platform to share them. % of content on the platform is irrelevant context for a report like this. /4
Even this sentence is deeply misleading. The word “proactive” is key as it means 80%+ ***of the removed hate speech*** is due to removal by software (as opposed to ~20% by humans). We learned from WSJ that maybe as low as 5% of hate speech is actually removed. /5
This stat is absolutely horrific and new to me. We learned in prior reporting that % removed by automation was driven up by Facebook creating friction in the human review process but I didn’t know it also was driven up by removing comments directed at white people. /6
Justice takes time. What he knew when. AOC will remember this, “Their lawsuit says Zuckerberg—facing the risk of personal liability over the data privacy scandal—got himself out of trouble by agreeing to pay a larger-than-necessary $5 billion fine with shareholder money.” 1/3
Here is the full report from Bloomberg on Zuckerberg’s deposition which apparently was cut short and late on docs on Dec 3rd. Board members Thiel, Andreessen, others all being deposed these weeks. Press allowed Facebook to rewrite history on this. 2/3 news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-p…
Here is a good thread that will get you into the details. Sheryl Sandberg also deposed although her assumed prior SEC deposition was sealed. We did finally get Zuckerberg’s which showed his nerves and that the scandal was on his mind much earlier. Thanks to @zamaan_qureshi 3/3
Overnight: FTC plans to call CEO Zuckerberg and (former) CTO Schroepfer in first 2 wks of trial (late April) in DC seeking to break up the company for abuse of monopoly laws. Also on their short list are some very big roles and names. Very likely driving behaviors at the top. /1
As I know their roles...
Chris Cox - chief product officer who took a break when scandals accelerated, and avoided testimony in UK.
Javier Olivan - now COO, key lieutenant
Sheryl Sandberg - former COO, on everything
Alex Schultz - key growth hacker, now CMO /2
Adam Mosseri - key lieutenant, now runs Insta
Dave Wehner - former CFO, deal approval including $19B with no real revenue WhatsApp
Fidji Simo - (former) always in mix, product leadership
Guy Rosen - Onavo alleged packet sniffing of WhatsApp, Snap /3
Woah. Google filed redacted versions of its Summary Judgment exhibits in Texas adtech antitrust case ahead of the March 31 trial. Although this case mirrors DOJ's case awaiting decision, it has even more eye-popping evidence. And an expert suggesting $29B in penalties. /1
"Project Bernanke" is an oldie but goodie that gets a lot of discussion. ICYMI, Google would allegedly increase the first highest and the second highest bid in its 2nd-price auctions then reinvest the "saved" funds back into other bids to Google wins more auctions. /2
The problem is while it may have ended up providing more revenue to the publisher (from/through Google) and no doubt to Google, Inc, it allegedly ignored the revenue which could have come through another channel if Google didn't manipulate the rev share as it ran the auctions. /3
US v Google II Closing arguments today.
70min for DOJ-> 95min for Google-> 20min for DOJ. Having predicted this case as better odds than search case (Google already lost in August), nothing changed my mind today. I wrote down: influence/$, complexity, deception, and arrogance. /1
I'm staying high level on perception first as findings of fact already covered much. On influence/$, DOJ pointed out early on and then again in rebuttal that every single witness presented by Google (except one) was paid or had grants from Google. /2
On complexity, Google again executed on its spaghetti defense with lead counsel, Karen Dunn, bookending trial by running over as she did in her opening. She appeared to skip dozens of slides, many minutes of close. And she loaded her slides while talking twice as fast as DOJ! /3
Bam. There is it. US Department of Justice has filed - requesting divestiture of Chrome as a remedy for court's finding against Google. Android at risk, too. /1
As it relates to Android, here is how DOJ puts it. Forced divestiture is option that "swiftly, efficiently, and decisively strikes at the locus of some anticompetitive conduct at issue here" but we're ok with tight behavioral remedies with option to divest if they don't work. /2
Revenue sharing for search default and/or preferential treatment - dead. Google's tens of billions to Apple - dead (last I saw it's about 15% of Apple's profits). Reminder, this all needs to be argued and approved by Court and then will get appealed. Still far off. /3
KA-BOOM. So when Google and its proxies (see so-called Chamber of Progress), friendly academics and analysts continue to suggest Chrome has nothing to do with the case, please ask them how many days they were at the trial. 1/3
This is super important. It’s an area @DCNorg (premium publishers) are intensely interested and concerned they get right around ability to restrict. The Court and trial made it clear they understood its importance during trial. We’ll be reading closely on Wednesday. 2/3
Here is the full report from Bloomberg who consistent with the entire trial showed up every day, did the hard work, and now got the massive scoop ahead of Wed filing. 3/3 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…