"Big Brother is watching."
Ha Ha Ha
Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus just shipped tens of thousands of Touch controllers bearing hidden messages — which suggest the company thinks user privacy is a laughing matter.
On Friday, Oculus executive Nate Mitchell shared a series of tweets noting that "Easter egg" labels meant for prototypes of the controllers made it into consumer units. Other labels, also meant for prototypes, shipped with developer kits.
Unfortunately, some “easter egg” labels meant for prototypes accidentally made it onto the internal hardware for tens of thousands of Touch controllers. [1/3]
— Nate Mitchell (@natemitchell) April 12, 2019
While I appreciate easter eggs, these were inappropriate and should have been removed. The integrity and functionality of the hardware were not compromised, and we've fixed our process so this won't happen again. [3/3]
— Nate Mitchell (@natemitchell) April 12, 2019
Internal Messaging
The labels include "Big Brother is Watching" — a "joke" seemingly making light of comparisons between Facebook and the all-seeing entity at the heart of George Orwell's dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
The messages appear on the controllers' "flex," which Facebook representative Johanna Peace told Business Insider is "an internal flexible component of the Touch controllers," meaning most users will never see the messages — though just knowing they're there is unsettling enough.
READ MORE: Facebook accidentally put hidden messages like 'Big Brother is Watching' and 'The Masons Were Here' in 'tens of thousands' of VR controllers [Business Insider]
More on Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg Insists That Facebook Promotes Privacy
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