Instant Messaging Company Snap Threatens Jail Time for Leakers (cheddar.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Snap has a simple message to its employees: leak information and you could be sued or even jailed. The chief lawyer and general counsel of Snapchat's parent company, Michael O'Sullivan, sent a threatening memo to all employees last week just before The Daily Beast published an explosive story with confidential user metrics about how certain Snapchat features are used. "We have a zero-tolerance policy for those who leak Snap Inc. confidential information," O'Sullivan said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Cheddar. "This applies to outright leaks and any informal 'off the record' conversations with reporters, as well as any confidential information you let slip to people who are not authorized to know that information."

Comments

This has everything to do with Twitter

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

This has everything to do with Snap not wanting to be "the next Twitter", where their idiot employees spout off on camera about their magic privacy-violating powers.

e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgyPpsX2B0g&t=3s

Channeling Steve Jobs?

[ErichTheRed]

I'm surprised the CEO isn't appearing on stage in black turtlenecks and jeans.

This just sounds like a paranoid, in-over-his-head dotcom era CEO running the place like his own personal empire. He's just trying to mimic the Steve Jobs personality...intense secrecy on products, over-the-top asshole personality, etc... So many people I've dealt with in executive positions are like this -- it's like they read a book in the airport bookstore telling them they need to act exactly like this CEO or that CEO, and just latch onto it for dear life, trying as hard as possible to pull it off.

Twitter vs. Snap

[DrYak]

"the next Twitter", where their idiot employees spout off on camera about their magic privacy-violating powers.

On the other hand, Twitter's entire goal is to broadcast you short message to everybody (micro-blogging), with direct messages being only a after-though bolted-on minor feature.
There shouldn't be much expected privacy to begin with (the whole point of twitter is to not be private, but shout out loud).

In short : Twitter is not the expected platform to send your dick pic, unless your goal *is* the whole planet to be subjected to it all the way to leaders in North Korea. (But please be aware that doing so might be an offense under your local jurisdiction)

Whereas Snap has always tried to present it self as a "your ephemeral message are guaranteed to remain private and un-seen" type of company (with varying degrees of actually managing to put it into practice - remember the "pics actually remain in the temp folder" scandal).

In short: Snap is (supposed to be) the platform where you can do all your sexting and expect that even the Mossad won't be aware of your and your s.o.'s intimate anatomies.

Employee announcing to abuse their all-seeing privileges can have different implication on both platforms.

And might be the ground on which the current assho^H... dictat^H... boss is trying to threaten with jail time:
- if the specific leaks they are revealing is about all-seeing abuses, they might be implied to have access illegal-to-them content
(e.g.: 2 european 15yo teens sexting with each other. Depending on the country it can be actually entirely legal. An employee bragging about tools to spy users' private messages could be suspected of having access nude pictures of said teens which is entirely illegal and a jailable offense in the US)

morale

[jsepeta]

The beatings will continue until morale improves!