After the whistleblower provided documents about the internal operation of the social network, the move was subject to strict scrutiny.
According to a company email sent on Tuesday evening, Facebook has told employees to “retain internal documents and communications related to its business since 2016” because the government and legislature have begun investigations into its operations.
This move is called “legal possession,” after the media, laws, and regulatory agencies conducted strict scrutiny of the social network’s harm. Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen provided thousands of internal documents to lawmakers and the media, demonstrating the company’s understanding of some of its adverse effects, such as disseminating misinformation and exacerbating the body image problems of some teenagers.
“As you may know, we are currently the focus of extensive media coverage based on a large number of internal documents,” Facebook said in an email to employees that the email had been obtained by the New York Times. “As often happens after such reports, the government and the legislature have conducted some investigations into the company’s operations.”
In the Facebook paper, company researchers discussed how to solve many of the problems that have appeared in some of its products over the years. The documents show that over time, Facebook’s core functions—such as likes, sharing, groups, and recommendations—are not only used to expand the company, but also manipulated by some to harm users. The documents show that many Facebook employees are struggling to control the impact.
Ms. Haugen has filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. She also testified in Parliament this month and spoke with British lawmakers on Monday.
A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that a legal detention notice was issued to employees on Tuesday night, but declined to elaborate on the reasons for the action. “The file preservation request is part of the process of responding to legal inquiries,” she said.
Facebook has previously issued legal instructions to employees. Last year, after the Federal Trade Commission and the state attorney general sued Facebook for illegally suppressing its competitors, the company advised employees to avoid discussing litigation-related issues and asked them to participate in online training courses to understand competition compliance policies.
The company also participated in an online advertising price manipulation investigation with Google as part of an antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 state attorneys against the search giant last year.
Facebook is also trying to curb employee leaks. This month, it told workers that it will privatize internal groups that focus on platform and election security. This will make it harder for them to see discussions related to these topics and limit participation.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who led the Senate subcommittee to investigate Facebook, wrote in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “These are companies trying to resist censorship. Instead of accepting the act of transparency.”.
In an email on Tuesday, Facebook told employees to keep all content since January 1, 2016. It also suggested that they should keep encrypted messages and pointed out that they should stay away from temporary messages for work purposes until further notice.
The e-mail stated that there is no “specific action” at this time, but employees should not discuss or publish legally reserved information anywhere on the company’s internal message board Workplace.
According to the email, not all aspects of Facebook’s business are subject to legal reservations. The company told employees that the files were only related to its messaging service WhatsApp; Spark AR, its augmented reality studio; and the new product experiment group, an internal incubator, were excluded from legal possession.
“You don’t need to keep files or communications specifically about WhatsApp as a company product,” the email said. “You must keep all WhatsApp messages related to other topics.”
Ford Motor announced that its profit for the three months ended September was US$1.8 billion, a decrease of US$600 million from the same period last year. The company mainly attributed it to a global shortage of computer chips.
The automaker said on Wednesday that revenue fell by about 5% to $35.7 billion. During the same period a year ago, when car sales rebounded after a decline due to the coronavirus pandemic, Ford’s revenue was $37.5 billion and revenue was $2.4 billion.
Ford said its semiconductor supply has improved significantly since the second quarter, and it expects to improve further in the fourth quarter, although tight chip supply may trouble the auto industry for some time.
Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said in a conference call with reporters: “I expect chip restrictions to remain fluid until 2022, and may extend into 2023, but we do expect the severity to decrease.”
Despite the shortage of computer chips, Ford raised its earnings forecast for 2021 and said it would resume dividend payments in the fourth quarter.
Earlier Wednesday, General Motors, also affected by the shortage of computer chips, reported that its third-quarter profit fell to $2.4 billion from $4 billion in the same period last year.
Although General Motors was hit harder by chip shortages in the third quarter than Ford, Ford had a bigger plight earlier this year because one of its main chip suppliers slowed down due to a fire in a Japanese factory.
Modern cars require dozens of computer chips to make various electronic components, such as engine controllers and infotainment systems. During last year’s pandemic, the production of automotive chips dropped sharply, leading to shortages of automakers, forcing their factories to sit idle for several weeks at a time, and dealers’ inventory of new cars was low.
One benefit of the shortage is the increase in car prices, which increases the profit per truck and car sold by automakers.
In the past, these companies usually made more cars than consumers bought, and sometimes each company had nearly 1 million cars and trucks parked in dealerships waiting to be sold. But Ford said on Wednesday that it has a rare backlog of orders for more than 100,000 vehicles in the United States. New models that arouse interest include Bronco sport utility vehicles, Mustang Mach-E electric vehicles and F-150 pickup trucks.
Consumers dismissed the price hikes of the three major global food and beverage companies, helping them increase their profits in the third quarter.
The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s and Kraft Heinz all reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday, despite continuing challenges in global supply chains and pandemic restrictions in many parts of the world. The sheer size of each company, and their ability to pass price increases on to consumers, seems to have helped them during uncertain times.
Mark Cohen, director of retail research at Columbia Business School, said: “Global companies have a huge advantage because of their size,” but also pointed out that the unpredictability of the pandemic makes it harder for these companies to be as agile as before.
Coca-Cola reported that net income for the three months ended September was $10 billion, an increase of 16% over the same period last year. Although the share of businesses related to restaurants and dining out has not yet recovered to the level of 2019, the number of cases sold has increased by 6%, resulting in higher sales than in 2019. The company said that the Delta variant of the coronavirus affected sales in multiple markets in August. In April, Chairman and CEO James Quincey announced that the beverage manufacturer would raise prices in response to rising commodity costs, but the company has not disclosed specific details.
McDonald’s reported sales increased by 12.7% compared to the same period last year, thanks to increased orders from US customers and higher menu prices, as well as fewer restaurant closures in Europe. The company expects US customers to maintain a 6% growth this year to compensate for the increase in labor and commodity costs. The company said that nearly 80% of US restaurants in this fast-food chain have reopened, but the reduction in operating hours and capacity continues to put pressure on its business. McDonald’s restaurants in China and Australia have been particularly affected by the pandemic lockdown.
Kraft Heinz reported that compared with the same period last year, net sales for the quarter fell 1.8% to $6.3 billion. The company’s sale of its nut business to Hormel Inc. partially caused the decline. And, as a sign of rising inflation, the company raised prices in its global catering and retail divisions by 1.5%. Paulo Basilio, the chief financial officer of Kraft Heinz, said in a conference call with investors that Kraft Heinz is expected to enter the “execution pricing plan to protect us in the next year”. Profitability at current cost levels”.
As the prices of food, gasoline, and other consumer goods continue to rise, Americans’ wallets have been hit. The price surge has put pressure on policymakers in the White House and the Federal Reserve, who said that as the economy reopens, the imbalance between supply and demand leading to price increases is a temporary quirk.
San Jose, California-Testimony in the ninth week of the fraud trial against Elizabeth Holmes raises the question of investors investing money in high-growth start-ups, such as Ms. Holmes’ failed blood testing company When Theranos, what risks and responsibilities will be faced.
In trials in the past few weeks, the jury heard the opinions of former Theranos employees, executives and board members who were shocked by their practices. They stated that they were attracted by the blood testing machines promoted by Ms. Holmes, which can perform counts. Hundreds of blood tests are accurately and quickly extracted from a drop of blood.
This is based on the testimony of investors. The prosecutor claimed that investors were victims of the 12 wire fraud charges at the core of the trial. Before Theranos went bankrupt in 2018, it raised US$945 million from investors with a valuation of US$9 billion, making Ms. Holmes a billionaire.
The following is the main content of this week’s proceedings, which only took place on Tuesday, because the water pipe near the court broke on Wednesday, forcing the cancellation of the day’s activities.
Lisa Peterson, investment manager of RDV Corporation, an investment company representing the wealthy DeVos family in Michigan, explained how the group invested in Theranos and ultimately lost $100 million.
According to an email displayed in court, RDV’s CEO Jerry Tubergen met Holmes at a meeting in 2014 and became enthusiastic about Theranos. Ms. Peterson, who is responsible for research and investment promotion, testified that Theranos carefully selected some wealthy families for investment, and Ms. Holmes made the company feel lucky to be included.
“She invited us to participate in this opportunity,” Ms. Peterson said. A presentation presented in the court stated that Theranos intends to find private investors who will not promote the company’s listing.
In Ms. Peterson’s testimony, prosecutors used how Theranos appeared to use false endorsements from pharmaceutical companies to deceive its partners and investors. Theranos presented a verification report to Walgreens and Safeway executives that showed the logo of the pharmaceutical company and indicated that they support its technology.
Last week, an executive at Pfizer testified that the company had delved into Theranos’ technology and “drew the opposite conclusion.” Ms. Peterson said that she had read the verification report and believed it was prepared by Pfizer, which helped attract her company to invest.
During intense cross-examination, Ms. Holmes’ lawyers tried to portray Ms. Peterson as a negligent capital steward who did not conduct proper research before injecting cash into a young startup company.
Lance Wade, Ms. Holmes’s lawyer, emphasized the contradiction between Ms. Peterson’s statement and the legal testimony she provided earlier. When Ms. Peterson insisted that her current testimony was accurate, he retorted: “Over time, your memory has improved? Is that your testimony?”
Mr. Wade also urged Ms. Peterson not to hire scientific, legal and technical experts to study Theranos’ claims in depth, and she did not ask to see copies of Theranos’ contracts with Walgreens and Safeway. “Do you understand that this is a typical investment approach?” he asked.
Mr. Wade tried to weaken Ms. Peterson’s decision-making power within the company, pointing out that she was not in the investment committee of RDV, and did not attend all meetings involving Theranos.
Ms. Holmes’ lawyers argued that investors like Ms. Peterson did not do enough research and followed a delicate route. That’s because their arguments include an implicit admission that Theranos’ technology did not do everything it promised, even if they must insist that Ms. Holmes did not lie about the technology.
Elizabeth Holmes, the shameful founder of blood testing startup Theranos, was tried for two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud.
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 when a 19-year-old dropout from Stanford University. She raised $700 million from investors and was crowned the youngest billionaire in the world, but was accused of lying about Theranos’ technical operations. She has pleaded not guilty.
Ramesh Balwani, known as Sunny, served as the president and chief operating officer of Theranos from 2009 to 2016 and maintained a romantic relationship with Holmes. He was also charged with fraud and may be tried next year. He has pleaded not guilty.
He tried to shut down whistleblowers and reporters who questioned the company’s business practices.
Post time: Oct-29-2021