27 November 2018 (Paris, France) – Nearly four years ago many of the major technology pundits (John Battelle and Evgeny Morozov among others) predicted that the bloom would fade from the technology industry’s rose, and so far, so true. Especially Facebook. It has been the (negative) talk of the internet for well over a year. Story after story after story. Devastating to any remaining illusions about Facebook. The recent New York Times story was probably the worst. You need to read it a few times to grasp it all but my guess is you’ll arrive at the same place as I did: babes in the political woods try to play both sides, screw it up. Bent on growth, Facebook ignored all the warning signs, all the internal alarm bells … and then sought to conceal them from public view. They went on the attack as one scandal after another … Russian meddling, data sharing, hate speech, ethnic cleansing … hit the corporate suites. Low motives, high comedy, zero integrity.
So the story over the weekend that British MPs made unprecedented use of Parliamentary powers to send a serjeant at arms to the hotel where the boss of a U.S. software biz was staying … so they could seize potentially damaging documents on Facebook … was a delightful read. Although it did seem odd to me that this app developer (with a grudge against Facebook) would be in London carrying around said documents right after even more damning news against Facebook had come to light. (Ars Technica said the documents were actually on Dropbox and then copied to a USB stick). Not to mention that the Committee got to know about it, and knew what hotel he was in.
NOTE: U.S. Senate Committees have the same “seizure” power. But given the overall corporate takeover of the Federal government, likely never to be exercised 🙂
The cache allegedly shows internal messages – including from Mark Zuckerberg – that demonstrate the social network actively exploited a loophole in its policies on access to users’ friends’ data that allowed Cambridge Analytica to walk away with info on 87 million people. The decision to seize the documents marks a major escalation in what was, until now, mostly a war of words between the parties. Zuck has flatly refused MPs requests that he give evidence in their inquiry. The chairman of the much-snubbed Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins, said the group had taken the extraordinary step because it had thus far “failed to get answers” from the firm directly.
The MPs took advantage of a rarely used Parliamentary mechanism to compel Ted Kramer, boss of app-making biz Six4Three, to hand over documents – filed under seal with a U.S. court – during a trip to London this month. According to The Guardian, a serjeant at arms was sent to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline – after which Kramer was reportedly escorted to Parliament and threatened with fines or prison time if he didn’t comply. Six4Three is understood to have obtained the documents as part of the legal e-discovery process during its court case against the Zuckerborg, in which it is alleging Facebook defrauded app developers by changing data access policies.
NOTE: the app dev said it had invested $250,000 in an utterly charming app that allowed users to find pictures of their friends’ friends in bikinis during the period in which Facebook’s Graph API policy allowed apps to suck up not just users’ data but also that of their friends.
Crucially to this scandal, Six4Three has claimed that this was as a result of encouragement from the firm, accusing the biz of “weaponizing” users’ data to bring in cash after desktop ad revenues slowed as a result of the surge in smartphone use in 2012. As the software biz would have it, Facebook implied this tap would remain on indefinitely – but, amid growing public concern about this unfettered access, Facebook turned it off in 2014 and 2015. Six4Three alleged this effectively defrauded firms that had based business on this access. Facebook has rubbished the claims, saying they are “entirely meritless” and that it “has never traded Facebook data for anything”.
However … Facebook is a wee bit nervy about the MPs having access to the documents because – despite them being under seal in the US – Parliamentary privilege offers various legal protections for members discussing such documents. As Facebook’s VP of policy, Richard Allan, Tweeted over the weekend: “I understand that Parliamentary privilege protects participants for anything said during a hearing of the UK committee. However, I am also mindful that this matter is sub judice before a court in California. It may be helpful for us to discuss this matter again after we have further guidance from the court.” He is due to appear in front of the MPs today and he may have done so as of this writing.
In response, Collins emphasised that the committee believed the cache contained “important information” on Facebook’s policies that are “of a high level of public interest” and relevant to its long-running inquiry into misinformation and data-harvesting.
What’s supposedly in the documents?
According to my research unit (which spent some time over the weekend looking at the court filings and reading much of the analysis), the cache amassed by Six4Three during the e-discovery process is reported to include internal emails and messages between Facebook execs discussing how to use and exploit these policies.
NOTE: in the court files there are unredacted copies of Six4Three’s opposition to the anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) motion relating to the company’s dispute with Facebook, along with documents relating Six4Three’s opposition to the anti-SLAPP motion. One must assume those are not Facebook internal files, unless Six4Three already had them. As I understand it, in California discovery does not start until after an anti-SLAPP motion has failed. Part of the purpose of an anti-SLAPP motion is to prevent abuse of discovery. Due to time limits to get this post out, I did not have time to check with a California e-discovery lawyer to work through the procedure.
Documents filed with the Superior Court of San Mateo in May this year claim Facebook used this access to information en masse as a way to boost ad spending after the desktop advertising business lost out to smartphones in 2012. Over the weekend The Guardian noted:
Zuckerberg weaponised the data of one-third of the planet’s population in order to cover up his failure to transition Facebook’s business from desktop computers to mobile ads.
If true, it would mean Facebook was not just aware of the data hose used by Cambridge Analytica to extract 87 million people’s information, but also that it actively flagged up this loophole to developers for its own benefit. One of the Six4Three court filings makes this connection, saying the evidence demonstrates the scandal “was not the result of mere negligence” but the “direct consequence of the malicious and fraudulent scheme… to cover up [Zuckerberg’s] failure to anticipate the world’s transition to smartphones”. Facebook has sought to paint the complaint as a spurious attack on the firm because it had done the right thing by reducing access to user data. Allan noted in a filing: “The repeated filings demonstrate that this is more about attacking our company than it is about a credible legal claim. While plaintiffs are free to file any complaint they wish to, however far-fetched, it is important not to take claims made in commercial cases like these at face value.”
Digging deeper
Yes, irony abounds. Data about Facebook is obtained, but Facebook doesn’t want that data released. So Facebook continues to violate their users’ privacy … but it wants to keep its corporate data shenanigans private.
In my blog series on Facebook I have noted that Facebook is always looking for effective ways to monetize their users. And so they approached it in the “Silicon Valley way” — they encourage a bunch of start-ups to try different things, and then copy or buy the ones that gained traction. This has the benefit of distancing themselves from the unsavory practices that they didn’t want to be associated with (well, unless it made them money). So it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the discovery documents presumably show that Facebook knew exactly what was being shared through the API, and that they tracked the usage in order to evaluate what was succeeding.
The global probe: Facebook has been dodging this hearing for a while. And now, lawmakers from nine different countries around the world will be present in London today to grill Facebook’s European policy chief, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore and the U.K. Said Charlie Angus, the vice chair of a top privacy committee in Canada, who criticized Zuckerberg for his decision to “blow off” the hearing”:
While we were playing on our phones and apps, our democratic institutions… [were] upended by frat boy billionaires from California.
It’s very unusual for countries from four different continents to band together in an effort to hold a U.S.-based company accountable for its actions in this way. The move suggests that Facebook’s public relations crisis in the U.S. is spilling over globally.
But bottom line (literally) is that while “generally amoral”, Facebook’s 6 million advertisers will keep it afloat no matter the scandal.
Foreign trips by Facebook executives might be an issue now. Although as a source at Facebook told me:
Listen, there has been a boatload of emails going around Facebook regarding new policies on burner laptops warning everybody not to cross borders with confidential documents.
Get out the popcorn.