| > 2018, Cambridge Analytica This is the big one, and it was a bona fide scandal. That said it happened in 2016, the story broke in 2018. Cambridge Analytica was very clearly the bad actor here, they took advantage of a too-permissive FB API that was patched. Facebook was rightly fined for negligence. > 2020, Facebook announced it won't fact-check political ads This is not a scandal lol. Ad platforms are under no obligation to fact-check political ads. Quite the opposite - federal law prohibits television broadcasters from refusing to run an ad from from a qualified political candidate for any reason! Google does not fact check any ads. Remember those insane Tai Lopez Youtube ads? > 2020, ex-Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang revealed inner practices profiting from political disinformation and manipulation. I hadn't heard of this one. From Wikipedia: >>> Zhang reported that most of these subversive networks use Facebook's organization pages, configured with human names and photographs to mimic human accounts in order to successfully evade Facebook's emerging efforts to counter fake users. She was on a team dedicated to stopping stuff like this, and she reported that people were figuring out ways around their automation? That's the point of the team! Staying ahead of bad actors! > 2021, ex-Facebook employee Frances Haugen leaks documents revealing unethical business practices for profit. Lots of allegations here, no legal consequences (unlike Cambridge Analytica which resulted in billions in fines). Similar to the Zhang story, the whole claim is "Facebook should be doing more than it already does to combat the bad actions of others" not "Facebook is actively doing bad stuff." From Wikipedia: >>> Haugen told The Guardian she was motivated to focus her work at Facebook on addressing misinformation because of her experience with losing a friend... after the friend visited online forums and became a proponent of conspiratorial beliefs that included white nationalism and the occult. >>> In December 2021, Little, Brown & Company announced a book deal with Haugen for her memoir... After leaving Facebook, Haugen relocated to Puerto Rico, and has invested in a cryptocurrency company. Do with that info what you will. |