On October 16, Meta replied to the ‘explanation’ video published by The Wire in its latest report accusing Facebook’s parent company of working on instructions of BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya to ‘silence some critics’. In a tweet thread, Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Meta, said, “The latest video from The Wire does not show an internal Instagram system. Our investigation has identified a spoof created on October 13 using our enterprise Meta Workplace product.”
The spoof was set up as a free trial Workplace account under the name “Instagram” and using the IG brand as its profile pic. We’ve locked the account for violating policies and are continuing to investigate. We’ll provide further updates as warranted here: https://t.co/CiVFJsOvti
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) October 16, 2022
Meta further said that the spoof was set up using a free trial Workspace account and used the Instagram brand as its profile picture. After identifying the account, they locked it, and further investigation is underway. He said, “The spoof was set up as a free trial Workplace account under the name “Instagram” and using the IG brand as its profile pic. We’ve locked the account for violating policies and are continuing to investigate.”
Meta also updated the statement about The Wire’s “expose” with the new findings. In its statement, Meta said, “This is an ongoing investigation, and we will update as it unfolds. At this time, we can confirm that the video shared by the Wire that purports to show an internal Instagram system (and which the Wire claims are evidence that their false allegations are true) in fact depicts an externally-created Meta Workplace account that was deliberately set up with Instagram’s name and brand insignia in order to deceive people. We have located the Workplace account in question, and found that it was created on October 13 — after the Wire’s news reports were initially published.”
It further added, “The account was set up externally as a free trial account on Meta’s enterprise Workplace product under the name “Instagram” and using the Instagram brand as its profile picture. It is not an internal account. Based on the timing of this account’s creation on October 13, it appears to have been set up specifically in order to manufacture evidence to support the Wire’s inaccurate reporting. We have locked the account because it’s in violation of our policies and is being used to perpetuate fraud and mislead journalists.”
The Wire claims its source sent a real-time video of the Workspace account
In its latest report, The Wire claimed to have accessed a screen recording from its source at Meta, where the source claimed to have logged into the Instagram workspace account that Meta previously claimed does not exist.
The Wire claimed, “As is clear in the video, the URL that Meta has officially claimed “is not in use” is very much in use. New reports had been added on the day of the video’s recording. The video also showed the source navigating through the secure ‘instagram.workplace.com’ workspace and opening the notes section.”
“The Wire asked the source to run a timer while they were screen-recording to show that it was happening in real-time. Our team also ascertained that the video hadn’t been tampered with, using the video’s metadata (they have been removed from the file we have made public). Additionally, the cursor maintained consistency throughout the video’s duration, with no abrupt breaks,” it added.
Experts debunk The Wire’s claims
One of the important aspects of the report was that The Wire claimed there were no ‘abrupt breaks’ in the cursor movement. It is one of the most crucial claims, as the cursor movement can give away if the video is modified without getting into metadata and other information. However, their claim was debunked by experts on Twitter.
Law and Policy expert Pranesh Prakash pointed out that The Wire’s claims were inconsistent with the video they posted. In a Twitter thread, he said that at one point in the video, the cursor did move abruptly. Pranesh posted the video and said, “Curiouser and curiouser: The cursor in the video released by The Wire abruptly jumps at 0:35, just at the moment when the person is logging into http://instagram.workplace.com.” The anomaly in the video was earlier reported @binhonglee.
Curiouser and curiouser: The cursor in the video released by @thewire_in abruptly jumps at 0:35, just at the moment when the person is logging into https://t.co/2D5YYt6Dmb.
— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh) October 16, 2022
(No doubt this will be explained away too.) via @championswimmer & @binhonglee
pic.twitter.com/8z4F6Y8MDP
He also added a video uploaded by The Wire and trimmed a 5-second video out of it to show the ‘abrupt break’ of the cursor in the video. He said, “The Wire states: “Additionally, the cursor maintained consistency throughout the video’s duration, with no abrupt breaks.” I’ve clipped the moment the cursor disappears and reappears elsewhere, during the login sequence. I think this qualifies as an “abrupt break,” don’t you?”
The Wire states: “Additionally, the cursor maintained consistency throughout the video’s duration, with no abrupt breaks.”
— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh) October 16, 2022
I’ve clipped the moment the cursor disappears and reappears elsewhere, during the login sequence. I think this qualifies as an “abrupt break”, don’t you? pic.twitter.com/P44a5Owghr
Meta vs The Wire saga
The Wire, on October 10, claimed Meta gave special previliges to Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT Cell Chief under XCheck program that he uses to get posts removed from Instagram, no questions asked. Meta, as well as netizens, refuted the claims. The Wire then came out with explanation after explanation, but all of them were called out repeatedly.
