Mike Norris, Co-Editor, The American Dossier
NBC news recently obtained 4,000 pages of leaked documents that detail Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to consolidate the social network’s power and control competitors by trading member data like currency. The documents range from 2011 to 2015, a time when Facebook was publicly proclaiming to be protecting member data. If the claims are true, they provide a powerful example of how organizations (and the government) will collect data on us in the future.
As Facebook’s membership numbers grew, the company quickly realized the value of the data it collected from member profiles. Facebook traded this member data like currency with key partners, including Tinder, Sony and Microsoft. Companies that were not considered “strategic partners” got different treatment.
In one instance, Facebook gave access to member data to Amazon, who was advertising on the social media site and partnering with it to launch the Fire smartphone. In another instance, Facebook cut off access to member data for a messaging app that had grown too popular and was viewed as a possible competitor.
The documents are exhibits in a California civil suit between the social network and software developer Six4Three. In 2013, Six4Three developed a Facebook app that relied on member data. When Facebook cut off the companies access in 2014, Six4Three filed suit against the Facebook for destroying that line of their business.
During discovery, Six4Three obtained internal emails, webchats, presentations, spreadsheets and meeting summaries from Facebook. These documents that showed how much Zuckerberg knew about the privacy gaps in Facebook’s application programming interface (API). These security flaws allowed Cambridge Analytica to data mine information on tens of millions of US voters during the 2016 election.
The documents also show that Zuckerberg, along with his board and management team, used Facebook’s member data as leverage over other companies.
400 of the 4,000 discovery documents have previously been reported by other media outlets and by a member of the British Parliament. MP Damian Collins has been investigating Facebook’s data privacy practices as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
After hearing about Six4Three’s lawsuit, Collins compelled the release of the documents by threatening the founder of Six4Three with imprisonment while he was in the UK on other business. The newest documents were anonymously leaked to journalist Duncan Campbell, who shared them with a limited number of media organizations, including NBC News, Computer Weekly and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The documents include several examples that suggest that changes made by Facebook were designed to cement the social media company’s power in the marketplace, not to protect its members. Zuckerberg clearly defined the company’s goal: to ensure Facebook maintained its dominant position in the social media market.
Facebook responded to the leak, stating that the documents selected were a “cherry-picked sample” that “tells only one side of the story and omits important context.”
The biggest threat Facebook now faces comes not from competitors, but from the government. Antitrust regulation is designed to promote fair competition among companies for the benefit of consumers.
Policymakers are now calling for the FTC to investigate Facebook for possibly violating those laws.
After serving as an Airborne Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division, Mike attended Florida State University, where he received his Bachelors Degree in Political Science and George Washington University, where he received his Masters in Political Management.
Since 2004, Mike has worked in the Florida Senate, where he was one of only two Chief’s of Staff under 30 and in the Michigan Senate, where he served as the Legislative Aide to the Assistant Minority Floor Leader. The 2018 election cycle was Mike’s eighth as a Political Consultant.
Mike previously served as the Secretary and Vice President of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans, Regional Vice Chair for the Florida Federated Young Republicans and attended the 2012 Republican National Convention as an Alternate Delegate.
He currently lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, with his rescue Pit Bull, Ike.
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