looking forward to House big tech accountability hearing today @ 11:30. @JGreenblattADL's written testimony hits on all of the right themes: surveillance advertising, market power, profit before people, PR-driven policy. congress.gov/117/meeting/ho…
Looking at this Holocaust Denial Report card which gave Facebook and Instagram a "D" and wondering how marketers justify spending subsidizing one of the most profitable companies on the planet when it's in the same category as Reddit, Discord and Steam.
Now watching hearing (earlier), tons of smart testimony. Happy to see testimony as to Facebook’s brazen deplatforming of independent researchers (@LauraEdelson2). Still shocked in how they did this. But I know I shouldn’t be. /3
“I’ve had direct conversations with Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives and they have lied to my face, they have lied to you, they have lied to their advertisers, they have lied to the public.” - @JGreenblattADL to US Congress on Facebook. /4
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
For those covering society, tech and policy, Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize speech is a an equally powerful witness to the importance of a free and plural press while a strong rebuke of Facebook, Inc and Mark Zuckerberg putting him in the same sentence with another authoritarian. /1
She describes Facebook in its bias against facts and journalism by their own design providing velocity and reach to lies and undermining trust. Dividing us and undermining global democracy. /2
Here, Ressa correctly dissects the core problem where market power is driven by unbridled data collection citing surveillance capitalism as the source of their strength. /3
Feels like I may have a few threads related to these issues. lol. Ok, disclosure here: DCN surfaced the census comparison issue and filed to successfully unseal much of the evidence from what was ultimately fraud allegations. Still more sunlight to come. Will link below.
Here is a thread to deep dive on the census vs potential reach issue and what appears to be emails deciding it was a big deal but at the same time not to disclose it.
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
just-in-time for Senate hearing, another Facebook lawsuit just posted public today. This one is another pension fund suit around anticompetitive behavior, misleading metrics now amended to add Facebook whistleblower claims we'll hear about shortly plus other unsealed docs. /1
the suit filed in DE is a pretty good compilation of allegations derived from press reports, leaked documents and unsealed lawsuits. From Cambridge Analytica to six4three leak to Congress, FTC, SEC, DCMS, ICO, other international investigations and again governance futility. /2
There is an entire section focused on the major topics of the whistleblower documents reported on by Wall Street Journal. Here is the part about Instagram and teen harm, head of Instagram is about to testify to Senate. /3
Outstanding report from north of border. I’ve been inside of Parliaments in Canada, UK, Belgium, Ireland, US but never seen a lobbyist quite like Chan. If there was a source who said he’s the personification of Facebook Comms brand in 2021, it was probably me. Some thoughts.. 1/7
I’ll never stop being floored at the influence peddling that comes from having Facebook lobbyists involved in take-down decisions for the platform. They shouldn’t be anywhere near these decisions until after they’re made. 2/7
This is an absolute strawman and a terrible position by Facebook that politicians rather than Facebook should decide what can be on social media. 3/7
Whoa. this is late-night news deep in a court filing.
Mark Zuckerberg was deposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb 19, 2019. Facebook’s opposition to DC adding Zuckerberg in its lawsuit for the Cambridge Analytica cover-up just posted - and it’s in an exhibit. /1
I had noted in a thread here that something in discovery must have grabbed the DC AG’s interests. Reminder, the SEC and FTC settled a few months after this deposition for over $5.1B and that’s now subject to massive shareholder lawsuits. /2
I’ll drop in one other thread here as it’s late and I can pick this up tomorrow. ICYMI, my core concerns have long been when and what did Mark Zuckerberg (and Sheryl Sandberg) know in what was a never-understood gaslight of a major cover-up impacting users and shareholders. /3