As I'm asked how I know of Indian culture:

I live in Fremont, CA which is plurality Indian. My neighbors are mostly Telugu-speaking Indian. Within 20 mins walk from my home are vada pav, chaat, dosa, idly, Hyderabadi/Gujarati/Bengali/Awadhi cuisine, Hindi+Tamil cinema, etc. In my freezer is kesar pista kulfi from the grocery store; in my pantry is kokum syrup, atta flour, chanal/urad dal, etc. I myself have cooked paneer makhani, malai kofta, biryani, chitranna, etc.; my girlfriend (who is veg) has also made masala dosa, parathas, and more.

And so it ends.

I try to keep an open mind, and so didn't publicize my suspicions at the very start. It was two years since I was at FB after all.

But once it became clear that my knowledge was not obsolete, none of the Wire's further 'evidence' was credible to myself.

https://twitter.com/Aditi_muses/status/1582383503185874946

The part that gave me most pause at the very start was how self-contained, succinct, and apparently damning the documents were.

Internal tech documents do not usually work like this. At most you can find a damning excerpt, but even that is hidden in context and workplace jargon.

India deserves better and healthier reporting that can hold the important - incl. the government - accountable. But the recent pieces in the Wire are unhelpful for this cause.

I've worked with the Wire, and published an op-ed with them. It saddens me to see them fall like this.

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1582161845980344321

My best guess to what happened:

The Wire gave too much trust to their source because of the personal relationship. No one wants to triple check a friend. When they realized they were sloppy, they were in too deep; they have to double down since their credibility is on the line.

The Wire's reports are based upon documents that are by now clearly faked.

But how did we get to this point? Newsroom incentives mean that press outlets face increasing pressure to write hip exciting articles that fit into the zeitgeist. Rigor doesn't get clicks or cash.

https://twitter.com/svaradarajan/status/1579811560075460610

Most misinformation does not come in a vacuum. Their consumers will tell you even if the specific details are incorrect, their message captures a broader truth. Besides, they support the outlet because it's tough on Godi media/Urban naxalites.

It may be wrong, but it feels right

FB says the Wire's docs are fabricated.

I'm inclined to believe them. They don't usually take this step - they refused to comment on my docs - and there were a number of discrepancies in the reporting/docs that might have been due to changes in the past two years but seem sus.

https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1579644792077946882

To be clear, if they were fabricated, it was definitely done by a FB current/former employee that knew enough to make a plausible fake and the Wire was innocent other than being fooled.

The Wire reports that FB Instagram automatically takes down posts reported by major Indian Xchecked figures without any oversight.

This isn't familiar to me, but that's no surprise as I wouldn't have encountered this. Some thoughts, if it's true (major caveat):

https://twitter.com/jahnavi_sen/status/1579339309647556610

There's no way this could apply to every single Xchecked user. There are millions of Xchecked accounts; accounts can be Xchecked for something as simple as having >10k followers. It's presumably restricted to a subset of more high-profile Xcheck origins.

It's been 13 months since I came forward as a whistleblower, and 6 months since the Lok Sabha asked for Speaker @ombirlakota to approve my testimony.

I still have not heard from the honorable speaker. I no longer believe that I will ever hear from him.
thehindu.com/news/national/… In 2019, I discovered an IT cell ran by a sitting LS MP. I repeatedly asked FB to decide, but received silence - they didn't want to act, but feared the optics of refusing.

It's deeply concerning that my offer to testify to the LS on this case has been met with similar silence.

I was honored to advise @KaulAyushman on the #TekFog investigation

At FB, I knew that I was only finding the low-hanging fruit: those too stupid to hide. Smarter than their incompetent MP, the main BJP IT cells were only caught via being exposed by one of their own

https://twitter.com/thewire_in/status/1479008187541950493

FB India leadership first told me that the BJP was the primary users of IT cells in 2018

When I caught a pro-AAP IT cell in Delhi's 2020 elections, policy leaders assumed they'd decided to imitate the BJP's methods. (The LS has the docs)

FB knew - they just didn't care to look.

The fundamental flaw with social media extremist policy is that violent movements are only banned when they receive attention & public backlash.

This means that - on Twitter/Reddit/FB/etc., dangerous extremists are only banned after they've gained support to persist off-platform

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1478533015458381824

The greatest value of social media to movements like QAnon, Boogaloo, white nationalists, etc. is in the growth phase.

The time to act is while they're small and ridiculed, before anyone has heard of them in the first place. But companies face no pressure at that point.

In 11/2018, I helped investigate America Progress Now (APN), a shady group running Green Party ads in swing districts. Other employees quickly determined that the group was run by US conservative operatives.

FB failed to act before the election. (1/15)
theguardian.com/technology/202… The episode attracted the attention of the press at the time. My role was minor; others did the real work.

FB did finally act after the election... to warn the perpetrators their duplicate accounts would be disabled. Mission accomplished, we said. (2/15)
propublica.org/article/a-myst…

Many security experts are familiar with compromised accounts - when someone unauthorized obtains account access.

A major issue at FB/IG was self-compromised accounts: People willingly hand over account access to others, as I write in @restofworld (1/7)

restofworld.org/2021/sophie-zh… Why would someone choose to give a nefarious third party access to their account?

Services known as "autolikers" are popular in much of the world. They offer the user free automatic likes. All you have to do is hand over your access token - letting them login as yourself (2/7)

It might be surprising to others that I felt so strongly about protecting democracy worldwide, when I'm just a silly Chinese-American girl who doesn't even like leaving her house.

But I firmly believe that everyone deserves equal protection of law - regardless of nation. (1/4) I realize that it's a fact of life that everyone cares more about their own nation; to the average Western audience, a dozen deaths in the US are treated far more seriously than hundreds in Myanmar. 300 million Americans are considered more important than 1 billion Indians. (2/4)

Facebook will say that I'm seeking attention. I never wanted attention - to face threats from powerful companies, to anger multiple powerful political figures throughout the world. Why would anyone want that?

I wanted to stay home and pet my cats. They are very good cats. But we all have to do things in life that we never wanted. I'm sure Navalny didn't want to return home to the arms of a government who wished to murder him. Tsikhanouskaya was a housewife, why would she wish to be banished from Belarus?

What I've risked is nothing in comparison.

I fought tooth and nail at Facebook for justice, because I knew the company would never have carried out my work without me. I thought it was my responsibility to do my utmost to protect the sanctity of the world's largest democracy.

FB disagreed. (1/6)
theguardian.com/technology/202… The @BJP4India politician's network was tiny and silly compared to what I saw in AZ and HN. I wouldn't consider it newsworthy, if it weren't for the fact that we were ready to take it down - approval had been given.

Then I found the BJP connection - and everything stopped. (2/6)

I was naïve and silly when I caught Honduran President @JuanOrlandoH red-handed. I thought I'd hand it over, the right teams would take care of it, and I could get back to my actual job.
Instead, it was the beginning of a Sisyphean 2-year struggle (1/6)
theguardian.com/technology/202… FB wasn't too surprised at the revelation. When I presented the situation to public policy leaders in 2018, one of them explained that he'd already been told socially by Hernandez's political consultants that they used troll farms.

That should have been my first red flag. (2/6)

I was only 28 when I discovered the Azerbaijani network. I spoke no Azeri, had never been within a thousand miles of the country, and didn't know who Ilham Aliyev was without Google.

The Azeri government was still incompetent enough to be caught.

theguardian.com/technology/202… I do want to highlight Facebook's response

Facebook PR implies that I'm lying - but can't find any mistakes with my details. They left the recidivists to return for months, but did a takedown as soon as it entered the press.

Yet more proof that FB prioritizes PR over integrity.

Facebook has many slogans. Employees were taught to #BeOpen, to #FocusOnImpact and #BuildSocialValue. We were told that #NothingAtFacebookIsSomeoneElsesProblem and asked #WhatWouldYouDoIfYouWerentAfraid.

I finally put all these into practice today. (1/8)

theguardian.com/technology/202… Of course, Facebook would never congratulate me for doing so. But at the end of the day, each company only believes in its slogans up to the point of self-interest.
I joined FB because I'd naively hoped to fix the company from within. I am coming forward, because I failed. (2/8)