Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

Twitter seems unlikely because most of the data produced by twitter is public anyways. Only private communication is DM.

Look at the two writeups (Zuckerberg's and Page's) side by side. Each has 4 paragraphs. Each of the pairs of paragraphs addresses the same thing.

1st paragraph: we wanted to respond to these claims. 2nd paragraph: never heard of PRISM, don't give direct access. 3rd paragraph: each request goes through legal channels. 4th paragraph: encourage governments to be more transparent.

Terrifying.

EDIT: It gets worse. Here's Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Here's Paltalk: "We have not heard of PRISM. Paltalk exercises extreme care to protect and secure users’ data, only responding to court orders as required to by law. Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers.”

Here's AOL: "We do not have any knowledge of the PRISM program. We do not disclose user information to government agencies without a court order, subpoena or formal legal process, nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers."

And here's Yahoo: "We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."

Microsoft refused to issue a direct denial of involvement in PRISM.

Isn't all Twitter data public? They don't need to deny anything

Maybe they all share the same lawyer /s

1. It would be nice if these statements defined "direct access to our servers". It's safe to guess that they are using the narrowest definition possible, meaning that a NSA employee can walk into the building that Facebook's servers are hosted in and log in to any server and run arbitrary commands. This is likely not what a layman's use of "direct access" would mean. The issue is whether or not the government can access whatever user data they wish provided the correct clearance or assertions.

2. "We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday."

Somehow I doubt that the National Security Agency is in the habit of telling companies that they work with the names they use for projects internally.

3. "we review each request carefully to make sure they always follow the correct processes and all applicable laws, and then only provide the information if is required by law. We will continue fighting aggressively to keep your information safe and secure."

This doesn't preclude the idea that the government accesses more Facebook user data than the general public might realize under current law. Facebook can provide large volumes of info as the PRISM slides suggest if it is indeed lawful, and this statement would not be a lie. It hinges on what exactly is "required by law", or more precisely, what is allowed under the current interpretation of the law.