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Aurornis an hour ago

In the opening sentence:

> according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company.

The headline makes it sound like something internal at Meta got revealed. The catchy four-H phrase is the clever hook the lawyer came up with to try to hold the jury’s mind through the case.

If you’re unfamiliar with how these trials work, the lawyers are trying to create a compelling narrative to support their case and catchy phrases that sound like marketing lingo are often used. This wasn’t some internal Meta doc that got revealed.

DiabloD3 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Its the same way "embrace, extend, and extinguish" was coined. "Embrace and extend", without extinguish/exterminate, was used in Microsoft corp docs that were handed to the DOJ during the famous antitrust case, but it was the DOJ that turned it into EEE after realizing what "embrace and extend" actually meant in the broader context of Microsoft's machinations.

The DOJ's clever hook won them the case.

hliyan 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not unlike "delay, deny, defend".

hn_throwaway_99 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> The DOJ's clever hook won them the case.

Or, rather, the fact that Microsoft was blatantly illegally abusing their monopoly position to kill competitors.

digitaltrees 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

Blatant complex behavior, no matter how illegal, won’t convince a judge or jury without clear rhetoric. So catch phrases are essential elements to conveying the truth about the behavior

gtowey 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The antidote to that would be for Meta to reveal all their internal communications. But they'll never do that because their own words and actions are likely far more damning than any story the DOJ could weave.

The trend I have noticed is anytime the actual truth leaks from these actors and companies, it's so much more evil than I could have imagined. Like the recent tell-all book from someone who worked directly with Zuckerberg, Careless People -- I was shocked at just how amoral those in leadership there. I had a dim view of them before, but their actual words and deeds were worse than I could have imagined.

voakbasda 8 minutes ago | parent [-]

The fun part is their internal communication might be relatively exculpatory, but a good prosecutor can find the crumb or two to hang them.

"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find something in them to hang him." — Cardinal Richelieu (Armand Jean du Plessis)

mmahemoff an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can see how the title is misleading, but I would have been shocked if it was internal Meta jargon. Execs at all the big tech companies nowadays have a culture of avoiding slogans that could be deemed overly aggressive. Even “Move fast and break things” was technocratted into “Move fast with stable infrastructure” after Meta went public.

xeonmc an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit.