That definitely sounds bad. I wonder what sort of justification they had to not tell people who left?

Not having closure is one of the most common grievances people have about relationships, friends, lovers, siblings, or colleagues that disappear.

It seems purposely malicious.

Agreed the lack of closure was frustrating.

Stemming the tide maybe? Don't want people to leave when they see a respected or well tenured person leave / get laid off?

All happened after an acquisition, so I'm not sure if this was business as usual for the other company or in response to increased attrition.

We ended up with an alumni slack like others here have mentioned.

I've had companies use privacy concerns as an excuse, which was hilarious. They couldn't tell us who left because they wanted to respect the laid-off people's privacy so the entire company spent the day compiling a list of all the deactivated Slack accounts. Great job!