The Facebook Fake-out

There’s a pattern that Facebook (well, Meta — you know, those folks behind Instagram and WhatsApp and the direct enabling of the Rohingya genocide) has been following for decades now that everyone in the worlds of policy and regulation and journalism seems to be constitutionally incapable of understanding. So I wanted to take a moment to explain it, clearly and simply, in hopes that this will at least make it obvious when everyone is being tricked again. Feel free to use this as a reference to send to your favorite legislator or journalist the next time they’re getting fooled by Mark Zuckerberg. Launch a new product or feature that very obviously violates people’s privacy or consent. (This one, you’re probably familiar with; they do this constantly, and sometimes it even makes headlines.) Get caught, either by users or by tech experts or researchers who find out Meta has been doing this nefarious thing. Put out a press release announcing that Meta will be pausing this practice, while…