The Engadget Facebook Entanglement
July 22, 2022
Engadget is a Silicon Valley type of “real” news outfit in my opinion. The online information service published “Fired Employee Claims Facebook Created Secret Tool to Read Users’ Deleted Messages.” The main idea is that Engadget presents information illustrating some fancy dancing at Facebook. The source is a “former employee.”
The write up reports:
a fired Meta employee who claims the company set up a “protocol” to pull up certain users’ deleted posts and hand them over to law enforcement.
Interesting.
I have heard that Facebook, like some other online outfits with oodles of data, has a procedure in place to respond to legally-okayed requests for certain information. I have also heard that Facebook, like other big time information outfits, does not have the resources to respond to requests as quickly as some officials desire. At one conference, I heard a remark that suggested some Facebook professionals were often busy with other prioritized tasks. The legally-okayed requests were placed in a queue. Eventually the Zuckers got to the requests.
Pace, energy, and responsiveness — these are often the hallmarks of a successful investigation. When absent, the momentum is embedded in digital Jell-O. The treat comes in one flavor: Bureaucratic blueberry, a tangy and bitter treat.
The write up points out this allegation presented in a former employee’s complaint:
a Facebook manager briefed Lawson [a former employee who presented the information] on a new tool which, “allowed them to circumvent Facebook’s normal privacy protocols in order to access user-deleted data.
The article explains Facebook’s alleged actions, its software tools, and the former employee’s actions regarding a method for viewing deleted content.k
Several questions:
- The question is, “Are data really deleted or are pointers removed and the data remain in the system?” In my experience, “removing” data can be a tricky and resource intensive process.
- Another question which occurred to me was, “Is this alleged behavior of the Zuckbook surprising based on the firm’s behaviors manifested in Congressional hearings over the last five years? I know that I was not surprised.
- What are the consequences for Facebook if the allegations are in fact true? An engineer can explain that such and such a tool was little more than a modified utility routinely used to determine what content is consuming storage space allocated for a particular data table. Will the legal eagles be able to resolve a repurposed utility designed to investigate storage space?
I am also intrigued with Engadget’s interest in Facebook. My question is, “What’s the entanglement at a distance between these two remarkable companies?” Engadget finds leakers. Leakers find Engadget. Facebook stories are like replays of events on “Live at Five” TV news programs. Repetitive and routine whether “real” or cooked up like a presenter’s recollection of an event like taking fire in a helicopter flying in a war zone.
Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2022
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