Facebook’s ‘spy ing op cover-up’ bid exposed
FACEBOOK tried to cover up a massive spying operation on its own users to avoid a public outcry, a damning trove of emails has revealed.
The previously secret documents shed new light on the US tech firm’s bid to gather information on users’ texts and calls, and crush potential competition.
They will add to pressure for a major crackdown on the social network after a string of scandals.
There are growing fears that Facebook is harming democracy by supporting the spread of fake news.
It is also accused of using families’ private information to make money at their expense.
Tory MP Damian Collins, chairman of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, which released the information, said: ‘There is considerable public interest in releasing these documents.
‘They raise important questions about how Facebook treats users’ data, their policies for working with app developers, and how they exercise their dominant position in the social media market. We don’t feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which is why we are releasing the documents.’
The emails – seized by parliamentary authorities from a businessman’s London hotel room last month – appear to show:
Facebook knew that recording data on customers’ calls and texts could trigger a furious backlash, but did it anyway;
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dismissed fears that personal data would leak and damage the firm;
The business crushed potential rival companies by cutting off their access to Facebook;
It continued to give certain companies, including Netflix and Airbnb, access to users’ information even after publicly saying it had limited access.
In 2015 Facebook launched a massive scheme to collect data on who users were texting and calling via an upgrade to an app for mobiles which use the Android operating system. This call-log information could be invaluable to advertisers.
In an email in February 2015, Facebook employee Michael LeBeau said: ‘This is a pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective but it appears that the growth team will charge ahead and do it.’
In a statement accompanying the email release, Mr Collins said: ‘Facebook knew that the changes to its policies on the Android mobile phone system, which enabled the Facebook app to collect a record of calls and texts sent by the user, would be controversial.
‘To mitigate any bad PR, Facebook planned to make it as hard as possible for users to know that this was one of the underlying features of the upgrade of their app.’
In the emails released by MPs, billionaire Mr Zuckerberg, 34, told a colleague in October 2012: ‘I’m generally sceptical that there is as much data leak strategic risk as you think.’
In a statement, Facebook said the emails date from a decision in 20142015 to restrict the information available to partner businesses.
It added that the data made public by MPs has key context missing, adding that ‘the facts are clear: we’ve never sold people’s data.’
The firm insisted users had to choose to share call and text data.
‘We haven’t had straight answers’