Dispatch from Mexico
Posted on November 30th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
I’m on vacation, but this is important: Facebook is trying to use legal pressure to stop 02138 magazine from disseminating information about the contested origins of Facebook.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Inc. filed two legal motions aiming to force an independent magazine to take down from its Web site documents related to a suit over the social-networking site’s origins.
Early yesterday, Facebook’s lawyers notified 02138, an independent magazine geared at Harvard alumni, of two separate emergency motions seeking the removal of the documents from its online edition.
The documents are still available online here, but Facebook has a lot of lawyers….If you’re interested, take a look at these documents. And spread the word that a company that plans to collect and sell personal information about 50 million users doesn’t want one magazine to conduct reporting about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg….
6 Responses
11/30/2007 10:17 am
Richard,
Obviously these things were obtained legitimately, and I’m in favor of public transparency for things going on in open trials.
But I can’t see any legitimate journalistic interest in actually publishing the kid’s college application (for example). Culling out the tidbits that were culled seems like plenty, and serves the purpose that was involved in getting the things.
If the reporter isn’t confident that he’s found the most interesting bits, then that’s lame; if the idea is instead to appeal to people’s voyeuristic side (i.e., “I get to see part of someone’s educational record, ha ha, which FERPA usually prevents me from doing”), that’s evil. What’s the third alternative? I can’t see one.
This isn’t meant to be a j’accuse (unlike most of my posts about journalism), but I just don’t see the point of putting the things up there.
More: I don’t see the point of doing this story with all the hand-waving about who’s in the right, when in a few months (?) the court will have DETERMINED who was in the right. As it stands you’re giving people all the raw materials to adjudicate the thing as if they’re going to put in the time to do as well as (or better) than the court. If you waited, then the story and the decision could be reported fully, and you could focus properly on the ethical questions involved in being a self-absorbed college sophomore in occasional conversations with a couple entrepreneurial seniors. What Zuckerberg’s muzzy-headedness then might have to do with the ethics of his company I’m not sure; but presumably some lines could be drawn that MIGHT be interesting. Maybe.
I tend to find privacy concerns boring (except when intrusive legislation is being considered), and I think most of the exhibitionists on Facebook feel the same. (It’s not uncommon for me to look into a student’s profile for a specific purpose; cell-phone number, for example.) So Zuckerberg’s ethics probably matter less than people think.
Also, the Winklevosses will lose; you heard it here first.
Standing Eagle
11/30/2007 6:29 pm
Standing Eagle,
What a shock-helping people to make up their own minds, rather than take the court’s decision at face value. It is kind of a crazy idea, isn’t it?
11/30/2007 7:17 pm
Such a situation could make you “famous” again.
11/30/2007 7:40 pm
Rarely do I say this and even more rarely would I admit this, but I agree with SE. The Winklevosses will lose.
Yet, 02138 should win the right to keep the documents on-line, particularly because this is all in open trial. I it is an important story for many reasons and there will many angles that will unfold in time. And you can always say, “You saw it at 02138 first.”
At the very least, it’s excellent PR for your pub.
11/30/2007 10:38 pm
“-helping people to make up their own minds, rather than take the court’s decision at face value”
Yeah, it’s about time someone stuck it to those tyrannical judges and juries, with their ‘adversarial’ ‘findings of fact’ and their ‘rules of procedure’ and all that nonsense. What I want to know is when we can start modeling our judicial system on _American Idol_.
Big fan of democracy for the other two branches,
Standing Eagle
11/30/2007 11:09 pm
I have nothing against judges and juries, SE. They have done well by me in the past. But I also believe that there are many avenues to the truth. And believe me, I’ve reported many a time on trials that have gone very, very wrong…..