Facebook Bans Surveillance-For-Hire Companies From Its Platforms

This week, Facebook announced that it has banned seven spy companies from its platforms and will send notices to 48,000 users who it believes may have been targeted by these “cyber mercenaries.”

According to Facebook, these digital surveillance companies market themselves as a tool to hunt criminals. However, they can easily be abused to target whoever the company’s client wants, including journalists, advocates, and more.

“While these ‘cyber mercenaries’ often claim that their services only target criminals and terrorists, our months-long investigation concluded that the targeting is in fact indiscriminate,” researchers said in a report.

“Our hope is to contribute to the broader understanding of the harms this industry represents worldwide and… to help protect people and impose oversight on the sellers of ubiquitous spyware,” the company continued.

Privacy experts have raised concerns about these companies for years, so this move could be construed as too little, too late. Also, Facebook itself isn’t exactly shy about collecting our data and observing our behavior, so it’s a little rich that it wants to crack down on surveillance firms. Still, any move that protects user privacy should be welcomed – and its proof that the recent pressure on Facebook to strengthen its privacy measures is working.




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