In 2021, an internal document leak from Facebook (now Meta Platforms, or Meta) showed it was aware of harmful societal effects from its platforms, yet persisted in prioritizing profit over addressing these harms. The leak, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, resulted in reporting from The Wall Street Journal in September, as The Facebook Files series from journalist Jeff Horwitz, as well as the Facebook Papers, by a consortium of news outlets the next months.
One Response to the Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Block Facebook's
With Facebook in a dominant position in hosting a huge portion of the world’s social conversation, we’ve been worried about the incredible power the company has accumulated and the risks that poses
553,000,000 Reasons Not to Let Facebook Make Decisions About Your
Another day, another horrific Facebook privacy scandal. We know what comes next: Facebook will argue that losing a lot of our data means bad third-party actors are the real problem that we should
Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See on Facebook | Transparency Center
Facebook regularly publishes reports to give our community visibility into community standards enforcement, government requests and internet disruptions
Facebook isn't just giving these agitators a platform: it's paying them
An ABC NEWS Verify investigation reveals Facebook is directly funding some controversial Australian content creators including a white nationalist and an anti-vaxxer influencer.
Facebook Is Being Overrun With Stolen, AI-Generated Images That People Think Are Real
The once-prophesized future where cheap, AI-generated trash content floods out the hard work of real humans is already here, and is already taking over Facebook.
Facebook’s Attack on Research is Everyone's Problem
Facebook recently banned the accounts of several New York University (NYU) researchers who run Ad Observer, an accountability project that tracks paid disinformation, from its platform. This has
Changes to the Facebook Algorithm Decreased News Visibility Between 2021-2024
Platforms, especially Facebook, are primary news sources in the US. In its widely criticized "War on News," Meta algorithmically deprioritized news and political content. We use data from 40 news organizations (5,243,302 Facebook posts, 7,875,372,958 user reactions) and 21 non-news pages (396,468 posts; 1,909,088,308 reactions) between January 1, 2016 and February 13, 2025 to examine how these changes influenced news visibility on the platform. Reactions to news declined by 78% between 2021 and 2024 while reactions to non-news pages increased, indicating targeted suppression of news visibility. Low-quality sources were especially suppressed, yet the 2025 end to "War on News" increased user reactions to news, especially low-quality ones. These changes do not reflect decreased news supply, Facebook user base, or interest in news over this period.
Facebook's alleged use of APIs to crush competition is a warning to other data companies
Forget Instagram and WhatsApp. The real villains in the FTC lawsuit are Facebook's abuse of data and APIs.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter remove disinformation targeting Ukraine
Facebook parent company Meta says it has uncovered Russian efforts to undermine trust in the Ukrainian government and to hack Ukrainian military officials and journalists using social media.
Updated: Data Breaches Caused by Leaks in 2024
We’re tracking data breaches that are most likely caused by leaked secrets and keeping this page up-to-date.
Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
A Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China. Internal company documents show Meta wanted to minimize "revenue impact" caused by cracking down on the scams.
Project 'Ghostbusters': Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat data, docs allege
New docs from a monopoly lawsuit shed light on Facebook's "Ghostbusters" project.
Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better.
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
What does Meta actually do now?
Facebook's Big Move Toward the AfterWeb
Blow up your browser! The Next Big Thing is the AfterWeb. Facebook made a monumental announcement Monday that seemed as though it was designed to...
Free Our Feeds
Social media is broken: controlled by a handful of billionaires who shape what people see, say, and believe. These platforms profit from division, exploit user data, and lock people into closed systems.