ok, I'll add some thoughts here for this Mosseri hearing...time to go deeper. Mosseri just used future Ernst & Young audits to Senator Lee as a defense. It's worth noting Instagram is nowhere on being audited for brand safety by the industry. See the red box. /1
Sen Sullivan has locked in on problem here. US Surgeon General report recommending limits on social media usage by teens is directly at odds with Instagram's core biz model. Mosseri deflecting. As Sen Klobuchar pointed out earlier, if Instagram had competition it would matter. /2
Senator Cruz once again doing an outstanding job digging into Mosseri and research. Rightly tries to pin down Mosseri on:
- raw data from Instagram research
- powerpoint presentations memorializing the data
Mosseri claims data is gone. Facebook, Inc. is an unethical cesspool.
/3
Senator Blackburn closes strongly. Empathy has historically appeared to be a PR tactic for the top leadership of Facebook. When we've seen it, we've later learned it was a cover-up. /4
Sen Blumenthal closing with his AG experience then shifting to why we need competition - he's absolutely right. As many have heard me say, there is no defensible case Instagram and Facebook's blue apps wouldn't be better for the public if they had to compete with each other. /5
Now a few clips. This was a powerful close by @MarshaBlackburn but the company’s actions are limited to the bare necessity due to public and government relations in the absence of competition. If Insta had to compete with blue or couldn’t share data, things would be different. /6
It’s worth noting @MarshaBlackburn also brought receipts. It’s pretty absurd the default would be wrong for such a large cohort even if it’s a minority of users. Sounds like another Alex Schultz growth hack to me. There are dozens at play always. Video game for them. /7
“I want to make sure I understand the commitment you’ve made to this committee.”… here is @SenTedCruz with precision. Remember Facebook never actually released to the public a majority of the decks as promised. Instead they annotated much of one and gaslit everyone over it. /8
One last clip for now. @SenMikeLee rightly asks a question about algorithmic amplification and recommendations. Mosseri answers with intentions and a metric on prevalence (5 of 10,000). /9
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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