A history of Facebook’s biggest screw-ups – from fake news to spam overloads
FACEBOOK has committed so many sins that people now just roll their eyes when it inevitably messes up.
But its dodgy ways have real-life consequences, as we're learning after yet another privacy scandal that affected up to 50 million of the platform's users.
From mishandling people's data to its controversial targeted ads, we've rounded up the social network's biggest screw-ups.
1. Allowing stores to post from your profile
It was downright despicable of Facebook to allow the physical stores you visited to hijack your profile, publishing stories of your purchases to the News Feed.
The violation resulted in a class-action lawsuit in 2008, after which Facebook shut down the feature for good.
As usual, Facebook was chasing money at the expense of user privacy.
It had hoped the advertising system, known as Beacon, would create "word of mouth" marketing.
But scores of outraged Facebook users complained that they hadn't received enough info about the service, and that it was an invasion of privacy.
An apology followed, and Facebook was forced to make the feature opt-in only.
"We learned a great deal from the Beacon experience," said Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, in 2009.
"For one, it underscored how critical it is to provide extensive user control over how information is shared."
2. Fake news
Fake news came to the fore because of how Facebook's News Feed is set up.
Posts that people interact with the most get bumped up the timeline.
Meanwhile the algorithm that powers it only shows you what you like.
This made it the ideal breeding ground for misinformation.
Sensationalist (and often divisive) posts illicit the strongest reactions.
And the more comments, likes, and shares that flood in the higher up the News Feed the fake news climbs.
There were entire propaganda networks being run by shady Russian organisations dedicated to manipulating Facebook.
After initially denying any complacency on its part, the social network admitted more than 126 million US users had viewed some form of Russian propaganda.
A congressional hearing followed, with Facebook, Twitter, and Google in the dock.
And Facebook's been grappling with the problem ever since.
Facebook Data Breach – what happened?
Here's what you need to know...
- A personality quiz app obtained data for 270,000 willing Facebook users
- But it also sucked up info on all of their Facebook friends
- That meant the app caught data for around 50-60 million users
- This data was reportedly sold on to UK research firm Cambridge Analytica
- Cambridge Analytica helps politicians and lobby groups create propaganda
- The data was supposedly used to boost the Brexit campaign and get Trump into the White House
- Facebook is said to have known about the data breach since 2015
- The social network asked companies with the data to delete it, but didn’t enforce the rule
- The Guardian revealed the incident in an exposé thanks to Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie
- There are now serious questions about whether Facebook has broken laws by giving up this data
3. Spam game invites
In 2009 to 2010, Facebook launched an app platform that deteriorated into a cesspool of spam.
The company wanted it to be a place for useful utilities that could go viral on the News Feed.
Instead, social games (like poker and Candy Crush) took over.
They doled out in-game rewards to those who shared posts and sent out invites.
With these types of updates threatening to overrun the News Feed, Facebook had no choice but to put a stop to the madness.
It shut down the vial growth channels that helped these god-awful titles thrive, upending many of the developers that had learned how to game the system.
4. Racist ad-targeting?
Facebook allowed marketers to buy ads that excluded specific ethnicities, such as "African-Americans"; and "Latinos".
The tool was designed to put marketers in touch with sets of customers interested in their products.
But its granular settings allowed advertisers to leave out select ethnicities from legally protected opportunities, such as housing, employment and loans.
Months later the ad buying system was also shown to give marketers the ability to target "Jew haters".
Facebook apologised and temporarily pulled the feature while it investigated the issue.
Confused by the Facebook breach? Check out our helpful guides...
- Facebook data scandal EXPLAINED
- What is Cambridge Analytica?
- Where is Mark Zuckerberg?
- How to see ALL your Facebook data
- How to delete your Facebook account
- Why it's time to delete Facebook
- How to stop Facebook apps handing over your data
5. Third-party data collection
Facebook's latest scandal (which saw a company called Cambridge Analytica hoover up the data of 50 million users) stems from the platform's tools for developers.
In the past, once you gave an app permission to access your profile that meant it could access your friends' public data too.
And there was no way for Facebook to stop these developers from flogging all that info to the highest bidder.
Realising that this could cause a privacy fiasco, Facebook shut down the system in 2015.
Now companies can only get access to your public data when you sign up for one of their apps.
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