Facebook documents show portal gave ‘whitelisted’ firms friends’ benefits

0 Mark Zuckerberg has not appeared for the committee A parliamentary inquiry into fake news has published a cache of seized Facebook documents detailing the social network’s business practices.

Facebook had objected to the seizure and publication of the documents, which were obtained by the House of Commons’ digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) select committee from an executive of a software firm suing the social network.

In publishing the documents, committee chair Damian Collins said: “I believe 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.

“We need a more public debate about the rights of social media users and the smaller businesses who are required to work with the tech giants. I hope that our committee investigation can stand up for them.”

In a summary of the 250page cache, which includes internal emails involving Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and other members of staff, Mr Collins highlighted a number of “key issues”.

He claims the documents show Facebook chose to “whitelist” selected companies, allowing them to maintain “full access” to the data of a user’s Facebook friends even after the company announced changes in 2015 to end such access.

Mr Collins suggests the cache also shows Facebook regularly discussed the value of data on the platform, saying: “The idea of linking access to friends’ data to the financial value of the developers’ relationship with Facebook is a recurring feature of the documents.”

He adds the files also show Facebook knew an update to its Android mobile app that would allow it to collect user call logs would be controversial.