When the tech industry was first establishing itself, it was something completely new to the planet, like, for example, the Industrial Age before it. Various mantras hit the zeitgeist: fake it til you make it; move fast and break things; fail fast. There are byproducts of these practices: the disregard for ethics, morality and responsibility or as we’ve said many times before, the only way to cover up a crime is to commit an even bigger crime.

 

The Elizabeth Holmes trial is on and it turns out that the Stanford dropout sidelined the real scientists at Theranos “By leaving them off email threads,” The Verge reported. Then attempted to blame them for Theranos’s failures. “A lot of new emails were introduced, showing Holmes was aware of the company’s problems, and was even actively trying to manage the situation. Several times in those emails, (former Theranos lab director Adam) Rosendorff tried to get Theranos labs to run FDA-approved tests instead of the ones Theranos developed. But maybe even more telling were the emails that Rosendorff was excluded from…“The company was more about PR and fundraising than patient care,” he said.

He did leave a paper trail, in violation of company policy but always good to CYA just in case  you might be designated to hold the bag if things went south, as who could possibly blame the CEO whose sole function in the company was to give the appearance of being the reincarnation of Steve Jobs?

Holmes and co-defendant, Sunny Balwani, who is being tried separately, face 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Fake it until you make it – or are indicted? Might want to rethink that one.

 

It also recently came to light that Facebook paid billions extra to the FTC to spare Zuckerberg in data suit, shareholders allege, Politico reported. “The company allegedly agreed to overpay on the original $106 million penalty so its CEO and COO could avoid deposition and personal liability.”

“Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and other Facebook directors agreed to authorize a multi-billion settlement with the FTC as an express quid pro quo to protect Zuckerberg from being named in the FTC’s complaint, made subject to personal liability, or even required to sit for a deposition,” one of the suits alleged.

And note to self: Zuckerberg himself is the majority shareholder, so truth be told, he didn’t need much more buy-in.

So, the company shelled out $5B instead of the original $106M penalty to resolve the Cambridge Analytica data leak probe and never mind shifting that hefty liability to the shareholders. The question must also be asked: what did Zuckerberg have to hide? And to lose?

 

Are shareholders the new target market and speaking of misleading investors: Twitter to Pay $809.5 Million to Settle Securities Suit.

 

Facebook is under attack on multiple fronts these days, given the Wall Street Journal’s recent series of articles cataloguing the company’s many ‘missteps,’ including, as The NY Post summed it up, “Facebook’s knowledge of the harmful impact of its Instagram platform on teen girls; on Facebook’s role in promoting anger on its platform; on Facebook’s weak response to employee-reported drug-cartel and human-trafficking activity on its platform; on how the Facebook platform thwarted Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to promote ­COVID-19 vaccinations; and on Facebook’s “XCheck” program, which exempts high-profile accounts and VIP users from Facebook’s enforcement actions. More stories are still forthcoming.

““We’re not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” and the company’s actions constitute a “breach of trust,” reads a confidential internal review done by Facebook.”

Which is consumer fraud, plain and simple and punishable under federal law. Considering Facebook’s ability to censor political speech et al, and its seeming refusal to rein in such illegal activity as drug sales, child pornography and human trafficking, this is hypocrisy – and worse: it’s time to hold Facebook accountable for its complicity in criminal activity.

FYI, The majority of online recruitment in active modern-day sex trafficking cases in America last year took place on Facebook, according to the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report. What to speak of the fact that Facebook Employees Flag Drug Cartels and Human Traffickers. The Company’s Response Is Weak, Documents Show.

Now it seems that Facebook is ‘pausing’ work on Instagram kids app after widespread criticism ‘It’s clear we need to take more time with this,’ The Verge reported. Ya think?

You can’t have it both ways and speaking of covering up a crime with a bigger crime, it may not be as feasible as it once was, given this highly surveilled world in which we now live, thanks in no small part to Facebook and Zuckerberg himself.

Turnabout is fair play.

 

Fake it til you make it; move fast and break things; the check is in the mail. A variation on the Three Great Lies, and there are many variations. Fake it til you make it? It’s always a better policy to be real, especially in an era when seemingly everything is eventually discoverable. As to ‘move fast and break things,’ Facebook’s own mantra, it seems that, at least in Facebook’s case, the thing that they especially believe that they can break is the rules, and let’s not forget that they’re called Great Lies for a reason.

One thing is certain, especially in this day and age: it may not necessarily be in the mail, but the waiter always does come around with the check. Onward and forward.