I don't understand this decision. Do they really think that creative wording will keep people from figuring it out? And once people figure it out, the "creative wording" just makes them look dishonest. Is it just about preventing news websites from being able to use "FB bought us" as a direct quote?

> the "creative wording" just makes them look dishonest.

I feel the same way. Whenever I see that kind of language I infer an undisguised attempt to mislead readers.

The real worrying part is that they think the creative wording makes them seem less dishonest than outright telling people that Facebook bought them.

This is not the announcement post but in the very first sentence it says "Today we announced that Mapillary has joined Facebook", linking to https://blog.mapillary.com/news/2020/06/18/Mapillary-joins-F...

Seems pretty clear to me.

I agree that's pretty clear, but I can also see how "joins" can read like a partnership or some other collaboration and not outright ownership.

I think they word it this way because they do not want to anger the OSM crowd too much (ie massively deleting their profiles & photos)

They are already getting started on that. https://framagit.org/Midgard/exit-mapillary