He likened it to WireHog since both use peer to peer technology with some social networking aspects. WireHog was deemed illegal because it was designed specifically for file sharing. Diaspora is not designed specifically for file sharing and more for information sharing.

What's the difference between file sharing and information sharing?

I'd hate to be him right now. No matter what he does, people are going to find a way to make it negative.

Yeah, well deceiving 400 million people will do that to a guy.

OR, it wasn't worth the risk for Facebook a quickly growing company at the time. However that type of risk my be worth it to a startup that is just starting and has many other more serious risks to worry about (like no one using their product).

Just because its illegal does not mean he did not think it was a cool project.

That comparison doesn't really make any sense.