It looks like Facebook's creepy teen-data-collection app is not going away, mainly because Facebook can't help themselves. Sheryl Sandberg, who I once praised for having better communication skills than Mark Zuckerberg, only to be proven 100% wrong about that during the whole Definers Media business, has once again stepped forward to try to direct the narrative, and her defense of Facebook appears to be almost entirely composed of lies.
As reported by Gizmodo:
Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s defense? The teens “consented.”
“So I want to be clear what this is,” Sandberg told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin
on Wednesday. “This is a Facebook Research app. It’s very clear to the
people who participated. It’s completely opt-in. There is a rigorous
consent flow and people are compensated. It’s a market research
program.”
“Now, that said, we know we have work to do to make sure people’s data is protected,” Sandberg added, repeating a thoroughly unconvincing line that has been rolled out so many times amid Facebook’s constant scandals that it has barreled into self-satire territory. “It’s your information. You put it on Facebook, you need to know what is happening. In this case the people who chose to participate in this program did.”
“But we definitely have work to do and we’ve done it,” Sandberg said, just to hammer home that line.
Here's the problem, though: the teens that Facebook bribed into accepting this app on their phones almost certainly didn't know how comprehensive the data collection would be. They didn't know that Facebook was behind the app, either, since Facebook took pains to hide their involvement:
Facebook had users sideload the app and avoided submitting it through TestFlight, Apple’s beta testing system, which requires Apple review.
And Facebook didn't do anything to protect the privacy of these teens; Apple had already blocked the app before Facebook made a show of "voluntarily" taking it down.
U.S. lawmakers, naturally, are furious, as reported by The Verge:
Tuesday night, a TechCrunch investigation revealed
that Facebook had been secretly paying teenagers to install a VPN that
let the company see nearly everything they did on their phones. Today,
lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are lashing out at the tech giant,
raising new questions about how the company might fare in future privacy
legislation.
“Wiretapping teens is not research, and it should never be
permissible.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in a statement.
“Instead of learning its lesson when it was caught spying on consumers
using the supposedly ‘private’ Onavo VPN app, Facebook rebranded the
intrusive app and circumvented Apple’s attempts to protect iPhone
users.”
Blumenthal said that he would be sending letters to Apple and Google to probe them on their involvement by hosting the apps.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeted, “Wait a minute. Facebook PAID teenagers to install a surveillance device on their phones without telling them it gave Facebook power to spy on them? Some kids as young as 13. Are you serious?” This is Hawley’s first year serving in the Senate, and he has already positioned himself as a strong conservative voice on tech. At his first Judiciary hearing in January, Hawley lambasted President Trump’s attorney general nominee with questions regarding his stance on regulating Silicon Valley companies.
Yes, folks, that's bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done about Facebook, in a country where it took the two major political parties over a month to agree that government was something that needed to exist, and be paid for.
It's not all doom and gloom for Facebook, though. Advertisers have apparently decided that they don't care how terrible Facebook's image is, leading to a 61% jump in earnings despite the firm's bad press, and Facebook managed to gain a few users over the quarter, too. The result? A surge in their share price, of course, meaning that the company's new, more combative media strategy is likely to be the tone we hear from them going forwards. And why not? It's working for them, at least in the near term. And if there's one thing on which you can rely, it's that bad corporate behaviour that gets rewarded with increased share prices and executive bonuses is guaranteed to continue.
All in all, it looks like this year in Facebook is going to be an even bumpier ride than last year, with #deleteFacebook having stalled, Facebook's soul-less advertiser clients having returned, and Facebook's increasingly defiant tone in the face of a continued litany of scandal having finally got the attention of U.S. lawmakers, who are already proposing legislation to put Facebook back in its place.
Buckle up, sunshine. It gets even rougher from here.