Meta has uncovered the Quest 3 leaker

Update:

Brad Lynch wrote a letter of clarification on Twitter.

Full text:

Due to the current attention around Meta uncloaking a leaker I have had contact with, I have composed this letter of clarification.

The source in question came to me with a prepared information package. I did not personally seek out this person or attempt to bribe or entice them into leaking trade secrets. It is a personal goal of mine to never put someone in a position where they feel forced to hand over private information, something which was also applied to this situation.

After some communication back and forth this specific source did end up asking for a small share of revenue associated with the publication of the information they provided. I agreed to this because the amount was small, and as I honestly barely make enough money to support myself as is, if it had been bigger I would have refused. At this point in time, due to the minute amounts it was about, it didn’t strike me what this would mean when it comes to journalistic ethics.

As it were, I was never trained on ethics in journalism, so the idea that giving an information provider a cut of the revenue generated by said information felt like a reasonable thing to do, especially as in this case the information was planned to be published with or without my involvement. As I run this show by myself, I don’t have corporate ethics guidelines to reference, but I have to learn everything by myself. In this case I should have put in more effort.

The financial relationship to my source was never disclosed to my audience, to me it was a small side-note that was not important to the story, and as it was not a sponsorship, I didn’t feel it was necessary.

Regarding my relationship to this source, to this day they are still entirely anonymous to me, which is by design. I don’t want to expose anyone who gives me information to any unwanted risks, this is also why I am generally disclosing very little to no information at all regarding any of my sources, which I believe is why sources feel comfortable approaching me.

When it comes to my network of sources, nobody except the person in this specific case has ever seen any financial compensation from me for their information. In hindsight I understand why the revenue share was unethical, and I feel bad about not recognizing that at the time. I don’t see myself as a large Youtuber by any means, but with time a lot of people in this small industry have started to treat my output the same way as that of a journalist website. With this there are new expectations, and I should have taken steps to meet those expectations.

I do regret the unethical part discussed above, but I generally don't regret any of the work I have done when it comes to gathering information from my sources. For some, leak culture is unethical in its entirety, but for me that is not the case. I will continue my attempts to figure out what the industry is doing.

Original article:

Youtuber Brad Lynch posted detailed blueprints of Meta's headset prototypes. Now Meta has identified the source of the leaks.

VR enthusiast, industry expert, and hardware analyst Bradley Lynch has been following the industry for years and has more than 115,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel alone.

Last summer, Lynch leaked technical drawings of the Meta Quest Pro and Quest Touch Pro controllers, which turned out to be largely accurate after their official unveiling and launch. This was followed by blueprints of a presumed Quest 3 prototype in the fall - a year before the device could be released.

It's not uncommon for technical details of upcoming VR headsets to be leaked ahead of time. Lynch's leaks, however, had a different dimension: they revealed precise details about the design and technical features of the Quest Pro, and possibly the Quest 3, well in advance of their launch.

Meta reveals informants

That seems to be over for now. After a "month-long investigation," Meta has revealed the source behind the leaked blueprints, writes The Verge editor Alex Heath in the latest issue of his Command Line newsletter.

Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth allegedly broke the news to Meta employees in an internal email, writes Heath, who himself has a long history of Meta leaks. Meta has severed ties with the whistleblower, who Heath says was a third-party contractor.

The person allegedly demanded a cut of the advertising revenue from Lynch's YouTube videos. Lynch would neither confirm nor deny this to Heath.

"They might have asked because I wasn’t willing to give much money up front," Lynch says. "I’m just one guy who loves VR and just enjoys talking with industry friends and reporting what I hear. And I’m definitely not getting rich from it."

Statement from Brad Lynch

The story is now likely to spark a debate about the benefits and harms of leaks for the industry and consumers. Here's a statement Brad Lynch sent us when asked:

This is normal in this line of work. People who leak stuff to any journalist or analyst is risking something. My job is mostly to protect them if they want to give a tip. Which I what have done even in this case scenario. Unfortunately it's hard when you're facing a multi-billion dollar company like Meta (who has a way-worse leaking problem than just what I have popularized).

I know people are wanting to use a leaked memo to take an opportunity to discuss why a different leak is bad, but it's probably not gonna deter me from doing this sort of work. It's pretty powerful for consumers and low-resourced competitors to have info on how to compete with a company who has consistently done anti-competitive practices. As for these large companies: they devote a ton of internal resources finding out what their competitors are doing too. But since I am decentralized and on a public platform, it's more dangerous to them. Because the little guys now know too.

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Brad Lynch

I have also reached out to Meta for comment and will update this article if I receive a response.

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