!!! As I mentioned last week, ND Cal court ordered unsealing of motion to compel Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg for discovery in their cover-up of Cambridge Analytica which broke wide open March 2018. Yellow was just unsealed - compare to Zuckerberg's testimony to @AOC. /1
This matters as it's long been expected much of Zuckerberg's messages on the matter happened directly with Sandberg or offline. It's an entirely rational practice to keep the CEO off the messy emails. Hence the need for discovery and depositions of Zuckerberg and Sandberg. /2
Meanwhile, Facebook:
- paid $5B to FTC to avoid depositions of leadership;
- negotiated questions off-limits the one time Sandberg testified;
- denied and deflected Parliaments attempts to get answers;
- so far, has avoided discovery and depositions of leadership by AG of DC. /3
Speaking of Sandberg, there is one bit that was unsealed next to a number of redactions left in place. The filing indicates that her files demonstrate that Cambridge Analytica was "merely the tip of the iceberg" which has always been the point of the case and cover-up. /4
This section was left sealed as Facebook claimed it was "confidential communication with consultants." Must be nice having that sort of latitude to avoid embarrassment who helped you with your cover-up. /5
More here in yellow, this just further confirms Sheryl Sandberg's role and importance of these lawsuits continuing to proceed forward in depositions and discovery. A reminder we also just learned there is a sealed transcript of a deposition of Mark Zuckerberg by the SEC. /6
If you want to review the full thread on the cover-up, I put it together last March as a reference to the inconsistencies and deflections in what should have been simple questions and answers at a time when Facebook promised it would come clean. /7
There were three other motions unsealed in the process (and a number of items left redacted per a last minute request by Facebook). This includes a motion regarding Facebook's APIs, their "business partners" and a still delayed look at their promised audit post-Cambridge. /8
There are a few companies left redacted. You can kind of figure out why later on in this breakdown. It looks like the car companies remain sealed as Facebook argued it could hurt their business relationships if the public knew they had much of our data. /10
Side note, there are a bunch of sentences unsealed that just confirm the obvious that Facebook has/had data partners and they're called "data brokers" and allegedly they both sent and received data from Facebook which is embarrassing for them as they don't "sell" your data. /11
Any engineer or business exec in the data or cloud industry would probably find the unsealed motion regarding APIs to be interesting. It includes some costs, massive data sizes, times, tables to restore from cold to warm, et al. And random things like this in yellow. Yikes. /12
Circling back to this first tweet. The answer to the email could have been: Mark, they laundered tens of millions of our records and used it to help elect Donald Trump including to microtarget suppression ads in key districts and we helped them do it. /13
Woah. Exhibit list just posted for Facebook trial in DE starting in a few weeks. We finally have confirmation Sheryl Sandberg was deposed by the SEC - one week prior to Zuckerberg which also kept secret until a lawsuit unsealed it. Sandberg was also sanctioned in this case. /1
This matters as it gets at Who Knew What When at FB ahead of the world finding out its platform was leaking personal data for years. Zuckerberg was dodgy at best under oath to Congress, FB responses to Parliaments focused on 2018 news. But exhibits include Jan 2017 MZ emails. /2
The DE lawsuit claims Facebook's $5 billion record settlement was inflated in order to protect its CEO, Zuckerberg, and also includes (civil) insider trading claims. Zuckerberg was ordered to sit for multiple day depo this year, will have to testify live. /3
Scanning front pages across America this morning. Still today, the local A1 best captures the biggest story of the day. The majors from NY to LA to Detroit to even Arkansas. /1
From Washington DC all of the way up to the major newspapers in Alaska… the No Kings protest images are everywhere capturing the moment. /2
All of them capture peaceful protest, democracy in action, and what America is all about at a time when social media algorithms may distort what the day was all about. Illinois to Colorado. /3
Incredible work being done by the press to keep facts building on facts. Grateful. This entire WSJ report overnight starting with this lede on how White House orders sparked LA crackdown is both chilling and informative. /1
This statement. “We came to the United States for protection of what we encountered in Russia. It seems that we are encountering here what we fled.” /2
WSJ separating out cases of targeting groups who have not committed crimes but even noting here incredible resources being used against what appears to be clear, First Amendment protected activity alerted the community. Here is the must-read report. /3 wsj.com/us-news/protes…
Confession. Having watched Scott Pelley's outstanding work over nearly three decades, I almost didn't take the time to watch his W.F. commencement speech thinking the news reports told me enough of the facts. Frankly, that would have been a huge mistake on my part. Huge. 1/5
Disclosure: I'm a 60 Minutes fan. In fact, I read Don Hewitt's "Tell Me a Story" after nearly a decade in sports media and it likely tipped the scale in 2007 when I decided to jump to work at CBS. I find Pelley and team brilliant in telling stories in barely 15 min segments. 2/5
“If liberty means anything at all, it means telling someone something that they don’t want to hear. I fear there may be some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today but I appreciate your forbearance in this small act of liberty.” - Scott Pelley 3/5
wow, another order for Mark Zuckerberg to sit for another court deposition. This time in a case involving privacy violations with ingesting web-wide health data. Remember they paid billions in cases to try to avoid this. Data and privacy issues are especially sensitive. /1
Zuckerberg depositions are interesting as they often go on for hours with highly informed attorneys driving for answers. And those answers may be put up against the often questioned veracity of his answers to Congress. Yes, as a CEO, he has testified to Congress A LOT. /2
I think his first real depo was SEC on very sensitive data scandal leading to $5B+ settlements with FTC+SEC. That scandal is still playing out in courts (did he overpay to protect himself?) It took 3yrs to get unsealed after I caught it in a footnote. /3
The Verge comes in with a massive scoop on the backstory reporting it was Musk - and Sacks - behind the scenes trying to blow up IP to train AI on behalf of his allies. This wouldn't be a surprise to anyone. /1
they have reports and details on the carnage and firing of the leadership and on the possible incorrect assumption that the new people in charge were running their playbook. /2
It may be rare that @mrddmia is in agreement with Dems but in the world of accountability for big tech abuse whether over data, monetization, IP, censorship, privacy, you name it, these aren't partisan issues. appreciate the shared voice from advocates all around. /3