Interesting essay from Cory Doctorow: Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers

Via his thread on Bluesky.

Read the whole thing at

Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers

Doctorow, Cory. (2026). Pluralistic: Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (27 Jun 2026). Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow. https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand-2/ (Accessed on June 27, 2026 at 05:17)

You may have heard that Meta (Facebook's parent company) has legally silenced Sarah Wynn-Williams, forbidding her to utter another word about her book or promote it it any way ('Careless People', a whistleblowing memoir of her time there between 2011 and 2017). This has resulted in a slightly horrifying / bizarre / almost comical series of situations in which Sarah is a panellist at events but is not able to speak and her book cannot be on sale after her events. Meta has now told her that her sitting mutely on panels is also against their wishes so she's now suing them to try and get herself released from the contract.

I remember back in 2006/7 (soon after Facebook permitted 'the public' to have accounts) logging in to discover that I could see other people's accounts, as if I was logged in as them. I remember emailing Facebook (which was possible back then!) to let them know, and they wrote back that there had been a short term glitch which was now fixed. I remember writing back 'Good save ;)' with a sarcastic winking face - but presumably sent it from my work account as I can't find any mention of it on Gmail (which I got in 2005 I think). 

While I didn't find a news report specifically about that event they did plenty of daft things in 2006 and 2007.

Facebook founder apologises for 'messing up' (8 September 2006) The Guardian

Facebook dismisses privacy fears (12 September 2007) BBC News

I don't think Argos is giving away free Black Friday vouchers today with "shopgift.win"

I've just seen a Facebook post suggesting that Argos is giving away a voucher today only as special deal. The link / URL / address is a little unusual in that it contains argos•co•uk but also has shopgift•win at the end of it, as part of the same link.

argos•co•uk•shopgift•win as opposed to argos•co•uk/shopgift•win

This made me a bit suspicious so I did a WHOIS search to find out a bit more by pasting the full link here http://whois.domaintools.com/

It returned this page http://whois.domaintools.com/shopgift.win telling me that the domain was registered 3 days ago. It also made it very clear (look at the lack of argos in that link) what the domain actually was. So I don't think it's really from Argos. 

Firefox also helpfully greys out bits of addresses to highlight what's the domain and what might not be.

shopgift•win is in black text, it's not really argos.co.uk

argos.co.uk is in black

In taking the next screenshot of the anonymised post on Facebook I also spotted the little info 'i' icon beween the red logos and the grey panel at the bottom, on the right...

... clicking on that tells me the same thing as above (useful info from Facebook which is a plus)

The voucher page asks questions and invites you to share a Facebook link - I'd recommend ignoring it. As I didn't find any other information about it on Google, Argos' page or on social media I thought I'd write this up in case anyone else was wondering if it was real and searched, as I did. I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of this is other than to get a link shared and perhaps access Facebook information.

Facebook privacy, again

Facebook has tweaked its privacy settings again. You may want to block these options so that you're given a chance to OK anything in which you're tagged. Other than this it seems that Facebook has mostly improved its privacy settings of late. Still, best to keep your wits about you.

• Click on Account > Privacy settings.
• Scroll down to How tags work and click on Edit settings.
• Edit settings to suit - most of these seems to be default to letting people tag you and check you in to places (which I'd originally had disabled I think, so check to make sure).

When I first went on this new page there was a little tour to tell me what each button does - I copied the text and added it below. In the picture the 'Friends' button is highlighted.

First button on the left that looks like a 'plus person' symbol

"Use this button to tag people to say who you're with. You can tag anyone. When you (or others) add tags, the people tagged and their friends may see the post too. You can choose to review tags others add to your stuff.

Note: we removed a setting that limited whether the friends of people you tagged could see a post. Now you control this by choosing who you tag and approving tags other people add to your content. Your old posts won't change."

Location button

"To easily say where you are, you can add your current city or neighborhood to your posts, or add a specific place. You can turn this on or off at any time."

Friends button (controls who can see this information)

"Use this to manage who can see and comment on posts you share, including ones with location, if you add it. When you change this setting, it will stay how you set it for future posts until you change it again. Posts (including check-ins) from old mobile Facebook apps will use your new default privacy setting.

Also, we've changed the label for "Everyone" to "Public," but your posts will still reach the same people."

Why does Facebook disobey me?

Shortened link for this post is http://is.gd/PjL8DB

In my Facebook settings (think Fort Knox) I have switched off all platform applications so am a bit surprised to be presented with an opportunity, on other pages, to comment as me on Facebook and to simultaneously post to my wall. I'd have assumed this wasn't possible. When I log out of Facebook this option disappears from these pages (if I reload them post logout) - but I have never authorised these pages to know that I'm logged in to Facebook in the first place and I've told Facebook not to indicate that I am. What am I doing wrong?

Here's a pic of my settings - Blogger used to let me add images that were of a reasonable size, sorry it's so teeny (possibly Blogger's lying to me about my settings too!) - hopefully if you click on it the image will open up larger in Twitpic...

...and below is an example of the comment form, again sorry about its teenyness.

How to block Facebook's Places thing

Edit: I've also found an almost identical post over at Wired which was posted yesterday
which is annoyingly much better than mine, with ace pictures. Ah well ;)

I had some lovely pictures in an older post here... http://brodiesnotes.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-block-facebook-applications.html

-------

I've no real idea what 'Places' actually is, but I've adopted a policy of blocking every new thing that Facebook comes up with until they learn a bit of respect ;)

I use Facebook as a 'friend management system', or 'FMS' for want of a better phrase, for the people I already know, not to acquire new friends (I'm not saying I've not used it for that purpose but it's not my primary consideration) and this means that I'm reluctant to have my comings and goings displayed too far beyond my chums on Facebook. Just to spite them really as it's all fairly public on Twitter and elsewhere.

If you want to block Places, try this.

1. Click 'Account' (top right hand side of screen) to bring up menu options, choose Privacy Settings.
2. On the settings page scroll to bottom and click 'Customise settings'
3. On the 'Places I check in to' it will probably be set to 'Friends only' - click the arrow next to it and choose 'Customise'.
4. On the 'Custom privacy' window that pops up, next to 'Friends only' click the arrow and choose 'Only me' (or whatever variant you prefer).
5. Click 'Save setting' - that's it, you're done, you don't need to click anything else as it's now saved.
6. While you're at it, do the same for your other settings too :)

How to block Facebook applications

Short link for this post is http://is.gd/cEZIn
Click on any of the pictures to enlarge.

Edit 7 June 2010:
I might have just found a way of blocking all applications at once, by switching off 'platform applications' - if true, do this instead and ignore the text below :)

Account > Privacy settings > Scroll down to the bottom of the page > In 'Applications and websites' choose the link 'Edit your settings' > Click on 'Turn off' all platform applications.

This phrase appears in the section on 'Information accessible through your friends':

"Note: your name, Profile picture, gender, networks and user ID (along with any other information you've set to everyone) is available to friends' applications unless you turn off platform applications and websites."

-------------------------------------------------------------

This is how to block applications individually

Blocking a Facebook app is usually a two-step process - there doesn't appear to be a way to "block all apps except..." so it's a manual process for each one. Since Facebook apps can apparently access "your friends' info" (see blue highlight in the second screenshot below) then if I'm that friend I'd prefer that it didn't access my info. I assume the info is more than what is publicly available because if you're my friend you can see my entire profile.

If you want to find the apps that you're friends are currently using then, from your home / feed page, click on 'Applications' in the left hand side (see yellow highlight in first pic below), then the name of an application (highlighted in green below).



You'll be taken to a page that looks like this...



...here you need to click, again, on the name of the app (in green) and not on the part saying 'Leave application' (highlighted in red) - as far as I can see this is just a red herring to return you to your homepage and it doesn't block the app.

Once you've clicked you'll open up a new tab / window looking like the pic below. Click on the phrase 'Block application' (highlighted in pink) and a confirm window will appear, click to Block and then an acknowledgement will pop up to say that you've blocked the app.



You can now close the new page that opened, and go back to your profile in the original Facebook window.

Done.

If you want to block all applications from accessing any of your information I'm afraid you'll have to do this for each application, or put your friends on a limited profile view list.

If you are logged in to Facebook then you should be able to edit your Application settings by clicking on this link http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php?ref=mb or click on Account (top right) > Application settings. This shows you the apps that you are currently using or have authorised; you can delete or change their privacy settings here.

If you want to see all the applications you've currently blocked then follow this to get to the page: Account > Privacy settings > scroll to 'Block lists' and click on 'Edit your lists'.