FACEBOOK TO FACE THE MUSIC

Internal document leak could reveal all

FACEBOOK HAS LURCHED from one public relations mess to another for a couple of years now. The latest and biggest problem stems from the poor way it managed news output during the 2016 elections. The story has now taken a bizarre twist. It is being sued by an app developer called Six4Three, whose owner, Ted Kramer, has called Facebook “the biggest violator of data misuse in the history of the software industry.” Six4Three had an app that searched for pictures of people in bikinis on Facebook (not exactly a noble quest). Facebook shut it out and killed its business. As part of the case, Six4Three obtained private internal documents that revealed how much Facebook, and Zuckerberg in person, knew about the problems with privacy, and the abuse of it by Cambridge Analytica. These documents were placed under seal by the Californian court.

Now the bizarre bit: The documents were handed over to authorities in the UK while Mr. Kramer was visiting the country. Apparently, he panicked when approached on the matter on behalf of lawmakers investigating Facebook in the UK. Having tried to keep the documents private, it looks as though they’ll be leaked abroad.

Meanwhile, Facebook is trying to sell its smart home display, the Facebook Portal; even heavily discounted, it’s struggling. The idea of Facebook having a camera and microphone in your house could not have come at a worse time. It was already making the lists of the worst tech devices of the year in the month it was launched.

Zuckerberg has been making promises, and apologies, for years, but things haven’t fundamentally changed. Trust is a valuable asset, and Facebook is running low. It is big, and very rich, so it won’t implode, but we understand why it has hired an exdiplomat as its head of its Global Affairs and Communication: It is going to need one to talk its way out of this.