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Jason Kint

Feb 1 • 10 tweets • 4 min read

woah, I missed this. F*%&ing crazy. This NYT report is that, according to a presentation they reviewed, Peter Thiel - forever board member of Facebook - Founders Fund invested in a company that could hack into WhatsApp? Do I have that right? He's a remarkable board member. /1

A good time to remind that the NYT also reported Peter Thiel backed Clearview AI - the company that claimed according to reports to have scraped 3 billion images from Facebook for surveillance purposes. /2

And of course, there is still Palantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel, that - you guessed it - the NYT reported had people who helped Cambridge Analytica scrape its data. Thiel is defendant in shareholder derivative lawsuits since he's both on the board and co-founded Palantir. /3

Of course, Facebook's attorneys last week argued in the shareholder lawsuit - just last week - that it's more likely Zuckerberg is loyal to Thiel rather than the other way around so I guess there you go... /4

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1486952447449112576?s=20&t=EdeYyaFbgLTRbgIJJ6cEDQ

And as proper context, I guess we should throw out this Peter Thiel influence on Facebook doozy from a 2019 WSJ report. It's remarkable to consider how much value can be acquired from his sitting on Facebook's board without even owning much stock./5 wsj.com/articles/peter…

@aoc

I guess this also gets back to why it was smart of @aoc to ask Zuckerberg under oath when he told Peter Thiel about its cover-up that cost them $5 billion...Zuckerberg said he "didn't know." /6

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1372272671732473856?s=20&t=aSMtteQ3zYxAzvibWXVoVw

and the sources. Here is the NYT report from my first tweet (hacking WhatsApp): /7 nytimes.com/2022/01/28/wor…

and the sources. Here is the NYT report from my second tweet (Clearview scraping Facebook). /8 nytimes.com/2020/01/18/tec…

And the sources. Here is the NYT report from my third tweet (Palantir employees coaching Cambridge Analytica): /9 nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/…

I'll end this with it certainly seems there is a BFD problem that someone is going to have to find a way to hold these people accountable. This is the board of one of the most influential companies on the planet. /eof

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Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Feb 3

After listening to Facebook’s earnings a second time because a $270B drop in valuation deserves it, a few things stood out to me. First, the CFO, who I’ve been saying for 18 months needs to be clearer about their kneecapping, said the word “headwinds” 25 times so it’s a start. /1

Second, I’m seeing too much focus on flat/drop of Daily Active Users. Yes, that’s new but it’s their loss in ability to microtarget users as they’re opting out of tracking (iOS) plus CA and EU privacy laws are catching up to them that kneecaps their surveillance biz model. /2

Let’s listen in to their earnings a bit here. Here is the CFO during Q&A talking through some of the “headwinds” related to iOS and he also sort of mentions they may not be able to transfer data across the Atlantic any more (Schrems II). /3

Read 8 tweets

Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Feb 2

ok, I'm here. Facebook earnings. Since they're getting clobbered, I expect they'll talk a lot about shiny new things and blame underperformance on "competition" as because any pressure on growth will be used as a defense for their antitrust lawsuits with state AGs and FTC. /1

drinking game for 5pm, have a drink every time Mark, Sheryl or Dave use a derivative of the word "compete." Pace yourselves. /2

This is the FUD section still as I pointed out Q2 last year. Just in case anyone wants to ask Facebook to finally disclose arguably the most important metric to their ads business and 97%+ of their revenues. /3

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1420493979230085122?s=20&t=jHJTqwzxcIubRgOWyLLdDQ

Read 14 tweets

Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Feb 1

Meanwhile in 9th circuit - case where discovery has been ordered for Zuckerberg+Sandberg related to Cambridge cover-up, along with a lot of sensitive discovery... Facebook is losing A LOT lately. FB has been arguing users' data isn't retrievable because...it's everywhere... /1

Facebook has been trying to avoid turning over its' "Secret Sauce Report", including now all iterations of the living document, since June 2020. /2

Again, Court seems to be rightly getting impatient. These deadlines issued last night are for tomorrow. /3

Read 4 tweets

Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Feb 1

OK, I'm listening to Google's earnings. If they don't get a single question about state AGs charges of collusion and market rigging with Facebook - including newly unsealed internal messages at both companies - then the entire analyst Q&A is a complete joke. /1

By the way, yes, I already layered in the Google advertising numbers from the earnings tonight and never fear - I know you were worried - the swallowing of the advertising market by Google continued last year. /2

yoo-hoo, I mean he's literally on the earnings call. He signed the deal with Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook. Seems like a question but what do I know? Don't poke the bear. /3

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1451579045246820355?s=20&t=qjlZm1RotIXufH0qxhMlGA

Read 4 tweets

Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Jan 28

Oh dear, Facebook filed its motion to dismiss for the Delaware shareholder suit I called the "mother of all lawsuits" because it includes charges of insider trading and governance failures related to Cambridge Analytica cover-up. I still think it may bring Facebook down. /1

I find this amusing. In a number of places in its response to the court, Facebook argues there was a failure to allege "red flags." How would the board even know that there were "red flags????" /2

I mean subpoenas from state AGs all over the country, the Federal Trade Commission and international governments wouldn't necessarily indicate anything, right? /3

Read 12 tweets

Jason Kint

@jason_kint

Jan 28

I see new head of policy for Google and Facebook's main adtech trade group just filed his first public comments to FTC. They've used this stat for a long time to suggest surveillance ads are responsible for the free internet. I swear it gets sillier every time I read it. /1

In the same silly, they again claim "empirical evidence" pointing to research that 52% of ad revenue would go "poof" without the ability to track users around the net. Again, silly analysis. The spending wouldn't vanish but reallocate to private, user-acceptable ad formats. /2

And no it wouldn't shift to Google and Facebook if they also have to follow rules. Major regulator investigations already found a *majority* of Google and Facebook's data come from acting as third parties (exactly what is stopped by tracking prevention). /3

Read 5 tweets

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