Some 4,000 pages of internal Facebook documents from 2011 to 2015 leaked to reporters at NBC News illuminate the company’s shady approach to sharing and selling your personal user data, and how Facebook gives greater access to companies it considers friendly and aligned with its profit interests.
Read the entire report:
‘Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show: Facebook’s leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data — and privacy was an afterthought.’
Here are tweeted observations from Olivia Solon and Cyrus Farivar, the report’s co-authors, as well as other journalists who’ve been covering this same beat, commenting on the NBC News blockbuster just published today.
Important story from @oliviasolon & @NBCNews. Was #CambridgeAnalytica data leak accident? Or design? https://t.co/jcul457cZ8 via @nbcnews
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) April 16, 2019
“NBC has obtained thousands of pages of leaked internal documents show that Facebook wasn’t just spitballing about selling access to user data – the plans had buy-in among Zuck, Sandberg and were pitched to the board of directors,” tweeted report co-author Olivia Solon.
She continues, “While FB has always maintained it never sold your data & that the service is free, these docs show – over and over again – explicit monetary value ascribed to user data. This could, as @jason_kint says, help regulators build an antitrust complaint.”
Since I began at @NBCNews about 2 mo ago, a substantial portion of my time has been taken up working on this story, with @oliviasolon.
The result: "Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show"https://t.co/cvubNfL7Db
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
“It’s sort of unethical”: The complete #Six4Three docs obtained by @dcampbell_iptv were analyzed by @oliviasolon and @cfarivar expanding our view of Facebook as a ruthless monopolist that leveraged personal data to pick winners and losers in the market. https://t.co/hSYQa9J8i4
— David Carroll ? (@profcarroll) April 16, 2019
About 10% of these docs have already been made public by @DCMS, but the latest leaks provide a far fuller picture of how advanced plans were & the way that the selective trading of user data was used to control competition and consolidate Facebook’s power https://t.co/NUb6kKt46e
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
Since Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has tried to position the platform changes made in 2015 as being driven by privacy concerns, but we find very little discussion of privacy in these documents – except as a PR strategy https://t.co/NUb6kKt46e
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
Not all employees were happy about it. Some employees described Facebook's behavior with third-parties as “unethical” while others described the company as being like "Casterly Rock" (the home of the most evil #GOT family) https://t.co/NUb6kKt46e
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
Here's that Game of Thrones reference pic.twitter.com/5HKubhH0Cl
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
Another employee refers to Zuck as a "master of leverage"
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
I had reported some on Six4Three, Pikinis, and Ted Kramer before, back at @arstechnica.https://t.co/tBNn4m22aWhttps://t.co/xywCT3Fjrphttps://t.co/8pMaANLkID
And my mini-scoop, about the only other lawsuit like Six4Three v. Facebook:https://t.co/bF8GvlgK4e
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
That left me with a basic question: why doesn’t Ted Kramer have any allies?
After @oliviasolon and I began digging around, we eventually were connected to the legendary @dcampbell_iptv, who shared with us thousands of never-before-seen pages from that lawsuit.
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
Some of these documents were given by Kramer to MP @DamianCollins, who published hundreds of pages here:https://t.co/G8ORIhYi3l
The new, fuller cache of docs is very much like this, but more so.
It includes the phrase “master of leverage,” which we could not have invented.
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
TIPS WELCOME. @oliviasolon and I are happy to meet in person, anywhere in Bay Area. Coffee/beer on us. https://t.co/JxcmJrHUhT
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
These latest leaks build on some of the great reporting already done by @ObserverUK @ComputerWeekly @WSJ and @nytimes on some of the documents that have already come to light
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
This story would never have been possible without @carolecadwalla's work before us https://t.co/ZFmU6xFglw
— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 16, 2019
Judge Swope, the San Mateo Co. judge presiding over Six4Three v. Facebook, was not happy when Kramer gave docs to @DamianCollins.
In a rare move, he granted the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege.
Translation: judge is not happy. https://t.co/V6NSYSIV3F
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
“The evidence reflects that Six4Three, through its principal Mr. Kramer, utilized the services of counsel to aid in committing a crime or fraud,” Judge Swope wrote in his order, which he read from the bench during a March 2019 hearing.
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
“Prior to traveling to the United Kingdom with documents containing Facebook's confidential information, Mr. Kramer communicated with Mr. Collins on finding an ‘appropriate mechanism’ to disclose to DCMS similar to the communications of 643’s counsel to target third parties.”
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
Since we told Facebook about the fact that we have this cache of docs, just last week, its attorneys went back to court to convince Judge Swope to grant an expedited deposition of Kramer and his business partner, Tom Scaramellino, or bring them to court.https://t.co/iRBNM73YsN
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
Judge Swope has yet to rule on this motion.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Kramer swore under penalty of perjury he was not the source of the leaks.https://t.co/Sf2EGxSGGi
Scaramellino did too.https://t.co/CpcvoNBNOR
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
It’s also worth noting that nearly a year ago, AFTER Zuck testified before two Senate committees, Facebook submittted ~500 pages of written responses. I might be the only person who read them.
Facebook did not answer many of the senators’ questions.https://t.co/W5DDlJI1j5
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019
During that 2018 senate hearing, Zuck repeated one of Facebook’s favorite talking points, “We do not sell data to advertisers," @JohnCornyn had a quick comeback that has stuck with me: “You clearly rent it.”https://t.co/8g5pC69tRy
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) April 16, 2019