Facebook—a company that is equally known for surveilling an enormous swath of people, and for accidentally exposing their data in one way or another—shipped “tens of thousands” of its Oculus Touch controllers with some fun hidden messages written inside them, like “Big Brother is Watching.” Haha. It’s a joke. About surveillance. From that book? And you know, Facebook is a giant surveillance machine. Hey, where are you going?
Facebook’s head of VR Nate Mitchell confirmed this little whoopsie on Twitter, stating these goofemups—which included other phrases like “This Space for Rent,” “The Masons Were Here,” and “Hi iFixit! We See You!”—were only intended for prototype units. An inside joke, if you will. Please laugh.
The masons are, one imagines, a reference to the Freemasons, a fraternal organization a number of conspiracy theorists ascribe outsized influence too. (Facebook is among the platforms that have taken flack for helping to spread divisive conspiracist content, so the joke has levels.) Likewise, iFixit is a well-respected tech teardown and repair organization. This is not the first time Facebook has taken a shot at a technology website and faceplanted publicly. Hah. Ugh. Man, these guys can’t go a day without embarrassing themselves.