Meta denies it shared messages

Meta has denied it allowed Netflix access to Facebook users’ direct messages – an accusation made in unsealed court documents – as “shockingly untrue” as it faces fresh allegations of mishandling user data.

The claims come two years after Meta agreed to pay $US725m ($1.1bn) to settle a data privacy class action over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved data belonging to millions of Facebook users being harvested without their consent.

In court documents – unsealed last week as part of an antitrust lawsuit filed by US citizens Maximilian Klein and Sarah Grabert – Meta was accused of allowing Netflix access to Facebook users’ direct messages for almost a decade, saying the two companies enjoyed a “special relationship”.

The documents state that an inbox API agreement allowed Netflix “programmatic access to Facebook’s user’s private message boxes”.

“In exchange for which Netflix would “provide to FB a written report every two weeks that shows daily counts of recommendation sends and recipient clicks by interface, initiation surface, and/or implementation variant,” the documents state.

“Facebook provided Netflix with access to its so-called “Titan API,” a private API that allowed a whitelisted partner to access, among other things, Facebook user’s “messaging app and non-app friends.”

Meta communications director Andy Stone said while the company had an agreement with Netflix, he rejected the allegations it allowed the streaming giant to peer into its users’ messages.

“Shockingly untrue. Meta didn’t share people’s private messages with Netflix,” Mr Stone wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The agreement allowed people to message their friends on Facebook about what they were watching on Netflix, directly from the Netflix app. Such agreements are commonplace in the industry.

It comes as the Mark Zuckerbergcompany faces criticism from regulators – including Australia’s competition watchdog – over the proliferation of scams on its platforms.