back to article Transcript leak: Inside Facebook's secret crisis meeting, where Zuck and Sheryl race to save social network's rep

We have obtained a transcript of a secret crisis meeting held last week between top executives at Facebook, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, hammering out a corporate response to the social network's non-stop rollercoaster of scandals. We present it here unedited. Mark Zuckerberg: Hi everyone. So the …

  1. Tomato42

    passwords?

    errr, El Reg, I think your passwords leaked to The Onion, you may want to change them...

    1. el kabong
      Angel

      You can't find real news in the onion

      The onion is a satirical journal, there is no way this can be their work.

  2. Irongut

    "I wish I could go back to coding. I miss coding."

    You know I imagine that is actually the only thing in the article Zuck actually does say in meetings.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      You have a too good opinion of him...

      I imagine him actually saying "where's my next billion?? I'm still less rich than Scrooge McDuck"

    2. MiguelC Silver badge
      Unhappy

      I dunno about Zuck, I certainly say that....

  3. Winkypop Silver badge
    Meh

    The funny thing is

    This might not even be funny, it could be real.

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Joke

    Hmmm

    The corporate double think is strong in this one.

    Someone's spent a lot of time in those sorts of meetings.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Hmmm

      Someone's spent a lot of time in those sorts of meetings.

      Haven't we all been in them for the most part? Usually the one's with marketing involved.

    2. don't you hate it when you lose your account

      Re: Hmmm

      Personally I think he's spent too much time away from the real world. Whether he ever really knew how to connect to the rest of humanity in the real world is questionable. Like many who hide behind their screens.

  5. N2

    We’re a software company

    Really?

  6. just_me
    FAIL

    >Hi everyone. So the reason I wanted us all here was to…

    >Well, last week, as you know, I gave an interview to some Harvard Law professor.

    >So we all thought this was a good idea because he's not a journalist and wouldn't ask precise questions.

    Seriously? Wow.. Attorney types particularly Law Professors tend to be very precise. If you don't feel their question is precise, they probably already got out of you what they wanted(particularly in court). This is why a person representing themselves in court is often considered a fool. Looks like Zuckerburg is a bit disconnected from reality here.

    This transcript 'leak' must be a joke.. just couldn't be this 'choice'!

    1. Alister
      Holmes

      This transcript 'leak' must be a joke.. just couldn't be this 'choice'!

      This icon may give you a clue... ------->

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      This transcript 'leak' must be a joke.

      You don't say?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile, the media are already falling in Zuck the Hoarder's trap....

    The meeting could look real, but I'm afraid the Great Hoarders are far less clueless than depicted. They are looking for ways to blow dust in the eyes of the people who could pose as a threat to their business model - especially politicians and media -, and there's a risk they could be successful.

    Media are already misunderstanding the "private social network" proposed by The Hoarder as if Facebook was stopping to gather private data about its users - which is not what is planned. Tech media like ElReg can understand it, but many others just see the "privacy" finger and not the hungry claws behind.

    In the Facebook post, there's a careful managing of the words "encryption" and "messaging" to give the illusions that everything will be end-to-end encrypted, but I'm sure a lot will be end-to-Facebook encrypted because messaging between apps is different from storing photos on FB, for example. They know people are relying less on local storage, and are pushed towards online storage. That contents may be deleted after a given time is irrelevant, whatever is of interest for Facebook can be extracted before the content is deleted, and anyway, many people will still keep contents they don't want to be deleted there.

    The fact that Zuck says it won't store contents in countries which do violate human rights is irrelevant again. GDPR, for example, has a far higher bar for data storage. Anyway, he knows Facebook has no chance where VKontakte, WeChat and other systems that hold the market in their countries, so why not try to look good without any effort?

    While they can't see the bait is to push regulators to allow for the Whatsapp/Instagram/FB Messenger data merger. And the idea The Hoarder wants to build Anyway, what is very important is to have an app planted of as many devices as you could. You can ignore message contents, as the app will be able to gather a lot anyway.

    But there are journalists looking at WeChat large intrusion into Chinese lives as a good thing - i.e. "people can pay coffee with it!!!" - c'mon, does someone really think that paying using a Facebook app wouldn't be a ginormous privacy invasion, that would give FB even more very useful data points - far more interesting for advertisers than your "love you" or "have a pint?" messages?

    Really, I don't want services built on Facebook, and find one day I will have to use it to buy or pay.... or worse.

  8. Kane

    Yarp

    "All: Very seriously."

    At this point, my mind jumped straight to Hot Fuzz.

    For the Greater Good.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Yarp

      My favorite moment in the article. I can see the FB top execs having to attend weekly Facebook Catechism study sessions in which they repeat rote answers like this.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to ditch Facebook El Reg

    Come on, ditch the 'F' now,

    It's time.

  10. PhilipN Silver badge

    Privacy-focused

    Usual blah-bedi-blah straight from the Microsoft Manual of P.R. Speak.

    Privacy-focused is categorically not "private".

    The whole "note" is full of such weasel words. "Reducing permanence". What does that even mean? Until one hour before Judgement Day?

    I am starting to feel sick.

  11. Valeyard

    Zuckerberg: OK, all right! Thank you. Now that brings me to a bigger concern: our public image. As you know we take our users' privacy very seriously…

    All: Very seriously.

    Amazing! I can imagine them all reciting that in response to that sentence every single time it's said like in hot fuzz, "the greater good"

  12. SoaG

    Please make this an ongoing series.

    You can keep it fresh by doing a different tech company each episode.

  13. Mark 110

    Thanks

    You've prompted me to finaly get around to deactivating my Facebook. I never f_ing go near it anyway. Strangely I didn't see a "Delete account" opton . . . guess they still have my data.

    Sigh :-(

    1. RegGuy1 Silver badge

      guess they still have my data. Sigh :-(

      Well they haven't got mine. :-)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I’m shocked this was published...

    Won’t anyone think of Facebook execs privacy?

  15. Neon Teepee

    I love coding (tm)

    I wish i could go back to uni and steal my friends ideas. errr coding I mean I wish I could go back to coding

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Baffled

      I'm just baffled here, really can't think of who or what you could be talking about . . .

      ;-)

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