A new Netflix documentary called “The Social Dilemma” attempts to spell out for audiences all the ways in which Facebook is sapping our data, dividing society and profiting off users. And while this documentary has received criticism outside the tech industry for sensationalism, it has clearly rattled Facebook. The social media giant took the rare step of issuing a detailed response to the film this week, publishing a two-page rebuttal to seven of the documentary’s core criticisms. 

In particular, Facebook was keen to remind users that it does not sell their information to other platforms, and that it has “created new safeguards” for how data is used. The company was also quick to point out that it has thousands of people working on privacy-related issues, and that it doesn’t actually want your potentially sensitive information. 

“Despite what the film suggests, we have policies that prohibit businesses from sending us sensitive data about people, including users’ health information or social security numbers,” Facebook wrote in its two-page response. “We do not want this data and we take steps to prevent potentially sensitive data sent by businesses from being used in our systems.”

While this film may be flawed, it has also forced Facebook to publicly answer for many of its policies — and that’s never a bad thing. 

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