Daily Beast blames Facebook for doxxing Shawn Brooks, compromising the user’s privacy
The Daily Beast has been under attack for doxxing a Trump supporter who allegedly created the parody video of Nancy Pelosi, slowing down her words to make her look drunk. Now the outlet says Facebook helped their biased attack on the black conservative Shawn Brooks, whom they described as a forklift driver and Trump supporter from the Bronx.
A Twitter account claiming to be Brooks disputed key details of the story, claiming he is not a Trump supporter, did not create the parody video, and does not live in the Bronx.
The Beast writes that “It’s conceivable that someone else actually edited the clip. But a Facebook official, confirming a Daily Beast investigation, said the video was first posted on Politics WatchDog directly from Brooks’ personal Facebook account.”
So, based on this accusation, Facebook compromised the privacy of one of its users, handing over information on his activity to a journalist who was clearly engaged in a politically motivated attack.
Even left-wing feminist Caroline Orr, who described the Pelosi parody as “disgusting” (it’s simply a video of Pelosi slowed down to make her words appear slurred), expressed shock at the idea of Facebook handing over private information about its users.
“It appears that Facebook helped the reporter who wrote this story identify the person behind the doctored video of Nancy Pelosi — i.e., Facebook used its own internal data to help publicly identify a private citizen” tweeted Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) June 2, 2019.
“That’s extremely troubling.”
“Facebook confirmed to the reporter that the video was first posted “directly from Brooks’ personal Facebook account.
“So… Facebook is handing over information to reporters regarding what people are doing on their personal Facebook accounts?
“The guy didn’t break any laws. He didn’t even violate any of Facebook’s policies, according to the company. The doctored video is still up! In Facebook’s eyes, this guy did nothing wrong — yet they just handed over his private data to a reporter. How is that justifiable?”
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