Facebook Rebuked by US FTC After It Disabled Accounts of Researchers

The US Federal Trade Commission criticised Facebook on Thursday for making “misleading claims” to elucidate why it had disabled the accounts of researchers learning political ads on the social media platform.

Facebook stated on Tuesday it had minimize off the private accounts and entry of the New York University researchers due to considerations about different customers’ privateness.

Facebook had initially stated that the choice was made out of a necessity for the social media large to stay as much as a consent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

But Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne later told Wired that the consent decree was not a purpose to disable the researchers’ accounts. Instead, the decree required the creation of guidelines for a privateness program, which is what he stated the researchers had violated.

Laura Edelson, one of many researchers, denied any wrongdoing, Wired stated.

The FTC posted a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that it was “inaccurate” that the corporate’s actions have been required underneath the 2019 consent decree.

“While I appreciate that Facebook has now corrected the record, I am disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter,” wrote Sam Levine, the FTC’s performing director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“The FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.”

Facebook paid a record-setting $5 billion (roughly Rs. 37,100 crores) wonderful to resolve the FTC probe into its privateness practices and boosted safeguards on person information.

“While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims,” he wrote.

Separately, the FTC sued Facebook in December for allegedly violating antitrust legislation. That criticism was dismissed and the company has an August 19 deadline to refile it.

© Thomson Reuters 2021