Yesterday the CEO of Google took to the blogshpere to set the record straight on any involvement with a secret NSA program called PRISM that looks to monitor the activities of US citizens online. Today, Mark Zuckerberg also claimed that the press reports alleging Facebook’s involvement were “outrageous” and stated that Facebook “is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to its servers.”
Shortly after Zuckerberg released that statement, Internet pundits couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Zuckerberg’s and Page’s statements:
Here’s a Google doc with the Page and Zuckerberg denials: docs.google.com/document/d/1mv… Similar passages are bolded.
— Alexis C. Madrigal (@alexismadrigal) June 7, 2013
Google: We haven’t given the government direct access to our servers. // That doesn’t rule out an API.googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.h…
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) June 7, 2013
Perhaps the overlaps in language will cause more conspiracy theorists to claim the tech giants are in cahoots, or Facebook just piggybacked a little of the Google release which was surely examined by some high priced attorneys. One interesting omission by Zuckerberg was any reference to a “backdoor” suggesting there is potentially some other ‘indirect’ way to let Big Brother inside the social network!