[hypeatei]

Big tech and telecommunications companies are effectively miniature arms of the U.S. government at this point.

As seen by the "Protect America Act" of 2007[0], the government will retroactively cover their own ass and your companies' ass if deemed important enough to the intelligence apparatus. There isn't a chance in hell that Meta would be brought criminal charges for wiretapping.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_America_Act_of_2007

[Scoundreller]

I think The Onion nailed it in 2011:

https://www.theonion.com/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-...

[dylan604]

Which is clearly a red flag operation so that whenever someone serious tries to tout this, they'll be rebuffed as it's an article in the Onion. Those clever bastards!

[talldayo]

That, or scathing satire has been a mainstay at The Onion longer than political consternation.

[giancarlostoro]

I'm assuming they were doing it for the federal government at this point. There's no reason for them to spy on another app, they can hire almost any developer they want.

[dylan604]

Hiring another dev does not give them access to the raw numbers. It's not the same thing at all