{"id":868,"date":"2021-11-20T05:33:43","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T04:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/20\/a-facebook-employee-was-tortured-in-iran-shouldnt-the-company-be-more-prepared-for-situations-like-this-slate-magazine\/"},"modified":"2021-11-20T05:33:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T04:33:43","slug":"a-facebook-employee-was-tortured-in-iran-shouldnt-the-company-be-more-prepared-for-situations-like-this-slate-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/20\/a-facebook-employee-was-tortured-in-iran-shouldnt-the-company-be-more-prepared-for-situations-like-this-slate-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"A Facebook Employee Was Tortured in Iran. Shouldn\u2019t the Company Be More Prepared for Situations Like This? &#8211; Slate Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Among software engineers, Behdad Esfahbod is something of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/21\/world\/middleeast\/Iran-technology-arrest-spy.html\"> a celebrity<\/a>. He created HarfBuzz, a tool that allows programs to render scripts in languages like Persian, and led Google\u2019s fonts and text-rendering efforts. In 2019, he went to Facebook to work on its internationalization team, earning about $1 million a year. The following year, in January, he traveled to Tehran for what was supposed to be a two-week trip to visit his family. It became a nightmare.<br \/>On a Wednesday, he was supposed to meet up with friends at a caf\u00e9. On his way there, Esfahbod says, he was approached by four officers with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military tasked with keeping the current regime in power. (The U.S. considers it a terrorist organization.) The officers served Esfahbod with a warrant for allegedly cooperating with hostile entities and acting against the security of the Islamic regime. Then they whisked him off to the nearby Evin Prison for political dissidents.<br \/>Esfahbod\u2019s encounter with the IRGC threw his life into chaos. He was tortured and spent months afterward living in fear. In the aftermath, Esfahbod <a href=\"https:\/\/behdadesfahbod.medium.com\/if-you-read-one-thing-from-me-please-be-this-2262ec7b8af2\">went public<\/a> with the story of his capture, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/21\/world\/middleeast\/Iran-technology-arrest-spy.html\">made international news<\/a>. Unsurprisingly, it also made waves within Facebook, according to an internal document leaked as part of the Facebook Papers that was initially viewed by more than 5,500 employees. After we saw it, we called Esfahbod up, and he told us the full story of his experience and why he eventually left Facebook. And he described something strange: Not only did Facebook appear to fear Iran, but the Iranian authorities seemed wary of offending Facebook, too.<br \/>Esfahbod says the IRGC targeted him because of his friendships with activists who\u2019ve been developing tools to circumvent internet censorship in Iran. (Esfahbod did participate in Iran\u2019s Green Movement to remove former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, but he says he is not currently an activist.) He was placed in solitary confinement for a week, save for two sessions of psychological torture and daily six-hour interrogations. The guards went through most of his devices and downloaded troves of private data from his social media accounts. They also tried to convince him to become an informant and keep tabs on his activist friends once he left Iran.<br \/>Although the guards tried to present themselves to Esfahbod as powerful and threatening, they were surprisingly sheepish about anything having to do with Facebook. The guards knew he worked there, but they didn\u2019t ask him about his job and were generally wary of getting involved with the company, Esfahbod told us. They didn\u2019t even touch his company-issued laptop. \u201cThe guards were more afraid of opening up that laptop and Facebook overhearing the room. They didn\u2019t even ask me to try to connect to Facebook,\u201d Esfahbod said. After the guards threatened his family and said that they\u2019d imprison him for 10 years, he agreed to set up meetings with the activists he knew abroad and report back. They let him go, but he never followed through on the deal, despite the IRGC\u2019s later attempts to contact him through Instagram DMs and WhatsApp (services that are both owned by Facebook\u2019s parent company, Meta).<br \/>Esfahbod left Iran and ended up in Lisbon, Portugal, where he had an apartment. There, he tried to put his life back together. But his ordeal wasn\u2019t over.<br \/>Facebook had learned<strong> <\/strong>of his detention from his wife and friends within two days of his arrest. Esfahbod believes that may have been when the company\u2019s Global Security Operations Center shut down his Facebook accounts to prevent infiltration. Following his release, Esfahbod experienced crippling paranoia and fell into a deep depression he attributes to his bipolar II disorder. He felt unable to return to work. His manager initially told him not to worry about it, but Facebook HR informed him after a couple of months that he had run out of vacation days and had to go on unpaid leave. He filed for medical leave, a process in which he says he was repeatedly asked for a date he would return to work. Furthermore, he couldn\u2019t reactivate his Facebook accounts without doing so in person, in Seattle. But Esfahbod didn\u2019t feel comfortable returning to the United States from Lisbon at a time of heightened scrutiny of Iranian Americans (this was after the killing of Qassem Soleimani). He also worried that not having his social accounts would make it harder, not easier for him to pass potential border questioning. To Esfahbod, he\u2019d been placed in a Catch-22. \u201cBasically every interaction I had with Facebook HR was so out of tune, was so inhumane,\u201d Esfahbod told us.<br \/>Though Esfahbod felt his treatment by Facebook fell short, it may not have been unusual. \u201cFacebook has 60,000 employees. When you\u2019re building a leave policy for 60,000, you\u2019re not thinking of the one person that got detained by a foreign government,\u201d says Tim Sackett, an HR analyst and president of HRU Technical Resources. \u201cWhen you have these one-offs, it\u2019s kind of a unicorn event,\u201d he says. Though a company should do its best to protect its employees, leave policies aren\u2019t always equipped to deal with extraordinary events. Sackett also pointed out that HR departments are often designed primarily to protect the company, rather than individual employees.<br \/>The question, however, becomes whether Facebook <em>should<\/em> have more tailored policies for situations like the one Esfahbod went through, given its global presence and large international workforce. Facebook has encountered issues of its employees running afoul of authoritarian governments before: In 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-facebook-brazil\/facebook-executive-jailed-in-brazil-as-court-seeks-whatsapp-data-idUSKCN0W34WF\">Brazil arrested<\/a> a Facebook executive over WhatsApp data; <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2021\/06\/india-silicon-valley-twitter-google-censorship.html\">India threatened<\/a> arrests of Facebook employees earlier this year.<br \/>Esfahbod found it strange that Facebook didn\u2019t ask him what had transpired in Iran. \u201cIt felt like they were keeping their distance,\u201d he said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t even want to know if my detention had anything to do with Facebook.\u201d (Sackett says that in order to standardize processes, HR departments often won\u2019t ask about the details of traumatic events, which employees can find dehumanizing.) Esfahbod also said he didn\u2019t have direct contact with the company\u2019s security team.<br \/>Kadia Koroma, a spokesperson for Meta, said in a statement, \u201cMeta takes appropriate cautionary measures related to certain higher risk countries. However, specific details about those measures remain confidential and are proprietary to maintain the safety of our customers, people and products. Given the confidential nature of employee matters, we are unable to provide specific details about communications the company has had with Esfahbod.\u201d<br \/>We do know that Esfahbod\u2019s story was a subject of discussion within the company thanks to the Facebook Papers, a trove of tens of thousands of documents and posts collected by whistleblower Frances Haugen. In August 2020, there was an internal memo alluding to Esfahbod\u2019s capture (without naming him) sent by a member of the company\u2019s security division, according to the disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by Frances Haugen\u2019s legal counsel. (The redacted versions received by Congress are being reviewed by a consortium of news organizations, including Slate.) The post is titled \u201cEmployee Safety and Recent Events Surrounding Former Facebook Employee\u201d and reads in part:<br \/>Some employees have raised concern regarding a former Facebook employee who was arrested and tortured by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Our heart goes out to the employee and their family. It is terrible that the former employee had to endure this treatment and we take this type of situation very seriously.<br \/>The note goes on to say security\u2019s \u201cfirst priority \u2026 [is] to keep our employees safe.\u201d It outlines measures that employees should take to manage their safety, including: watching for suspicious activity if they are involved with open-internet groups that work against the Iranian government, being aware that they may be targeted by foreign governments as Facebook employees, installing additional security requirements on their accounts, and leaving company equipment behind when traveling to \u201cHigh Risk locations.\u201d (Some other places that have been labeled \u201chigh-risk\u201d by Facebook:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/2\/3\/22264180\/facebook-myanmar-coup-response-temporary-high-risk-location\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/2\/3\/22264180\/facebook-myanmar-coup-response-temporary-high-risk-location\">Myanmar after its recent military coup<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/mobile\/facebook-labeled-us-a-high-risk-location-amid-capitol-riot-report-says\/\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/mobile\/facebook-labeled-us-a-high-risk-location-amid-capitol-riot-report-says\/\">the United States<\/a> during the Capitol insurrection, and<a href=\"https:\/\/patch.com\/minnesota\/southwestminneapolis\/chauvin-trial-facebook-lists-minneapolis-high-risk-location\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/patch.com\/minnesota\/southwestminneapolis\/chauvin-trial-facebook-lists-minneapolis-high-risk-location\">the city of Minneapolis<\/a> in the time leading up to Derek Chauvin\u2019s trial.)<br \/>It\u2019s a document that reveals how aware the company is of risks associated with the Iranian and other governments, even as it asks employees to be proactive about their own security. Facebook has often publicly tangled with Iranian digital-influence operations, from attempts at<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2019\/oct\/21\/facebook-us-2020-elections-foreign-interference-russia\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2019\/oct\/21\/facebook-us-2020-elections-foreign-interference-russia\">U.S. election interference<\/a> to<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/europe-albania-iran-media-misinformation-8afcd143546fada00b88ff09ac810b31\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/europe-albania-iran-media-misinformation-8afcd143546fada00b88ff09ac810b31\">troll farm operations<\/a> to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/jul\/15\/facebook-iran-based-hackers-us-military-personnel\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/jul\/15\/facebook-iran-based-hackers-us-military-personnel\">connections with U.S. military personnel<\/a>; a few years ago, as digital rights advocate and Oxford scholar Mahsa Alimardani told us, Iran \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/iran-summons-facebooks-zuckerberg-over-privacy-allegations\">tried to put Mark Zuckerberg on trial for criminal charges<\/a>.\u201d The country <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2009\/may\/24\/facebook-banned-iran\">banned Facebook<\/a> following its infamous 2009 elections out of concern over activists\u2019 use of the site. However, Iran\u2019s government kept using the network, posting general updates to the outside world while also monitoring the social media actions of its diaspora. On Thursday, a federal grand jury <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/11\/18\/two-iranians-charged-by-feds-in-election-interference-to-aid-trump-.html\">indicted two Iranian nationals<\/a> for spreading U.S. election\u2013related conspiracies through Facebook\u2014among other digital outlets\u2014in October 2020. During Haugen\u2019s testimony before the U.S. Senate last month, she claimed that<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xE0nxRZ2BVg\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xE0nxRZ2BVg\">Iran was using Facebook for espionage<\/a>, which the company reportedly had knowledge of. That last point is confirmed by another one of the leaked documents, which features a series of memos from February focusing on resisting espionage efforts from Iran.<br \/>However, an April 29 chart, featuring data from the artificial intelligence engineers who worked on Facebook\u2019s nonhuman \u201cmisinformation classifiers,\u201d shows that Facebook failed to train enough of its classifiers to recognize content written with the languages spoken in Iran. Despite Facebook\u2019s concerns about Iran manipulating its platform, it didn\u2019t do nearly enough to look out for misinformation written in the country\u2019s official language, Farsi (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/14\/world\/middleeast\/iran-fake-news-report.html\">which has been widespread in recent years<\/a>). It fits in with other evidence that Facebook\u2019s awareness of various problems far outpaced its efforts to address them.<br \/>Meanwhile, based on Esfahbod\u2019s story, Iran\u2019s most powerful military force is also scared of Facebook. \u201cFacebook\u2019s resources and technologies far outweigh Iran\u2019s in terms of technological sophistication,\u201d said Alimardani. \u201cI don\u2019t doubt that [the IRGC] would be intimidated by Facebook\u2019s technical superiority.\u201d Facebook\u2019s stalemate with Iran appears to have been to Esfahbod\u2019s benefit, as the IRGC didn\u2019t attempt to leverage his position at the company.<br \/>Esfahbod remained on leave for several months, eventually gaining entry back into the U.S. (and recovering his personal social media accounts). Then in June 2020, he posted public callouts of what he referred to as the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/behdadesfahbod.medium.com\/violence-abuse-racism-and-colonialism-in-the-type-industry-807b7af2bbfa\">violence, abuse, racism, and colonialism in the t<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/behdadesfahbod.medium.com\/violence-abuse-racism-and-colonialism-in-the-type-industry-807b7af2bbfa\">ype industry<\/a>\u201d (referring to the designers and associations responsible for the fonts we use on the web). He said that at this time, HR approached him with concerns about his Twitter activity, which felt to him hypocritical, given Facebook\u2019s own approach to moderation\u2014the company had only recently decided to leave up Donald Trump\u2019s controversial \u201cwhen the looting starts, the shooting starts\u201d post\u2014and how hands-off he\u2019d felt the company had been about his detention. He resigned from Facebook the same day. Content policy and employee policy are ostensibly two separate issues at any social media company. But in Facebook\u2019s case, they are issues that repeatedly run into each other.<br \/>   <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/technology\/future_tense\/2012\/03\/future_tense_emerging_technologies_society_and_policy_.html\">Future Tense<\/a>   is a partnership of   <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\">Slate<\/a>,   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/\">New America<\/a>, and   <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asu.edu\/?feature=research\">Arizona State  University<\/a>   that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. <br \/>Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company.<br \/>All contents &copy; 2021 The Slate Group LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2021\/11\/facebook-papers-behdad-esfahbod-iran.html\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among software engineers, Behdad Esfahbod is something of a celebrity. He created HarfBuzz, a tool that allows programs to render scripts in languages like Persian, and led Google\u2019s fonts and text-rendering efforts. In 2019, he went to Facebook to work on its internationalization team, earning about $1 million a year. The following year, in January, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}