Leaked Documents Show Facebook Leveraged User Data To Fight Rivals and Help Friends

A cache of leaked Facebook documents shows how the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, oversaw plans to consolidate the social network's power and control competitors by treating its users' data as a bargaining chip. NBC News reports: This trove comprises approximately 7,000 pages in total, of which about 4,000 are internal Facebook communications such as emails, web chats, notes, presentations and spreadsheets, primarily from 2011 to 2015. About 1,200 pages are marked as "highly confidential." Taken together, they show how Zuckerberg, along with his board and management team, found ways to tap Facebook users' data -- including information about friends, relationships and photos -- as leverage over the companies it partnered with. In some cases, Facebook would reward partners by giving them preferential access to certain types of user data while denying the same access to rival companies.

For example, Facebook gave Amazon special access to user data because it was spending money on Facebook advertising. In another case the messaging app MessageMe was cut off from access to data because it had grown too popular and could compete with Facebook. All the while, Facebook planned to publicly frame these moves as a way to protect user privacy, the documents show. State and federal authorities are now closely scrutinizing Facebook's business practices. In October, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that 47 attorneys general from states and U.S. territories plan to take part in a New York-led antitrust probe into Facebook. Over the summer, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings over antitrust concerns in Silicon Valley while the Federal Trade Commission also continues to examine the firm's practices.

It would almost be a surprise if this werenâ(

[daftna]

Facebook had been able to do what it wanted before the 2016 US election

Facebook and users

[Chewbacon]

I come across political conversations frequently where one snowflake tells another: "YOU SUPPORT TRUMP? WOULD BE A SHAME IF YOUR BOSS GOT A SCREEN SHOT OF YOU SUPPORTING RACISM AND RAPE!!!"

Shit happens all the time on both fronts.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[ArchieBunker]

No that's pretty much young people and politics today. There is a push to find out which business owner supports which political party. So if your barber down the street voted Republican expect boycotts and hate.

Re:Facebook and users

[Rick Schumann]

I'd like to point out to you that whenever you or anyone else makes comments like you just made, this is what it looks like to everyone:

Well, {other group} does {similarly bad thing(s)}, therefore it's okay for {subject of discussion} to do {bad things}, stop complaining about it.

Seriously, it does. In your specific comment it looks like you're making excuses for Facebook because some other group does bad things, too, therefore somehow what Facebook does/did is okay. Is that the message you really want to send, here?

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[Chewbacon]

Not saying it's ok. My point is that it's a shithole social network full of shithole people ran by a shithole company.

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[110010001000]

Maybe they come from shithole countries too?

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[bill_mcgonigle]

Your Aunt Mildred is on there posting pictures of her cats too. Sounds like maybe your echo chamber (all FB is, is a collection of echo chambers) is full of assholes.

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[Rick Schumann]

See, I agree 100% with what you just said -- but probably for different reasons entirely.

Updates in italics

[bill_mcgonigle]

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Facebook
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 400,000,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.

What's so scandalous about crowdsourcing?

[Cajun Hell]

Giving Facebook the power to do things like this is the whole reason people go to the trouble of telling Facebook all this stuff. Facebook needed peoples' help, and lots of people generously stepped up to help them. But now the media is saying things like "leak" as though there's something underhanded going on that we weren't supposed to know about.

If you've got a problem with Facebook doing this, then I would suspect you're the kind of person who wouldn't be sending them information anyway. No? If you're

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[timeOday]

They're being investigated for anti-trust violations, not stalking. In the case of that MessageMe app, for example, the anti-trust implications are pretty clear - nobody can make a competitive messaging app because Facebook has the database to enable it. The Facebook messaging app has free access to it, whereas no competitor such as MessageMe can buy it. Breaking up the messaging app from the core user data business would restore that market.

The daily Facebook Scandal

[tinkerton]

So we now have the daily Facebook scandal, the daily Russia scandal and the daily Chinese scandal.
The latter two required serious propaganda effort to get going but if I'm right here then once the momentum is there, propaganda becomes superfluous and everyone just jumps on the bandwagon. This leads me to question, who benefits from the Facebook scandals?

Yup

[ArchieBunker]

It's always been like that. No Russia news lately so Facebook is the new bogeyman. Nevermind when Obama collaborated with Facebook in 2008 and 2012 it was innovative and groundbreaking.

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[kot-begemot-uk]

It's always been like that. No Russia news lately so Facebook is the new bogeyman. Nevermind when Obama collaborated with Facebook in 2008 and 2012 it was innovative and groundbreaking.

Things were slightly different then:

1. Facebook did not specify what is truth

2. Facebook did not have political relationships organized by an ex-UK deputy PM to specify the correct flavour of truth

3. Facebook was not treating political speech different from other forms of speech.

4... 5... 6... 7...

I would not be so sure that Obama would have succeeded to leverage Facebook today the way he did 10 years ago. At least without paying Zuck.

Duh

[fluffernutter]

I don't use Facebook regularly anyway. But if I knew anyone who worked for Facebook I would certainly stay off of it. This is no surprise.

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[kot-begemot-uk]

If you are a non-American and travel to the USA you just landed yourself on the subversive list.

I suggest you read the USA Visa requirements in the part related to social media, phone number and email address reporting.

It is becoming like USSR TV. You are expected to watch the 9 O'clock news and if you do not you are marked subversive. The sole difference is that it is not the neighbours reporting you. It's now fully automated (probably adding your full shadow profile to the report).

Oh noes

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Me so shocked.

Users as bargaing chips

[slick7]

This is what the FED did in 1913, twenty years later the first manufactured economic depression. Add to that all the wars generated by all of the world's banksters and you can see what will become of Fakebook. Its users will become pawns not of their choosing. Proudly a non-member of Fakebook since its inception.