Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson

Facebook memo outlines ‘ugly truth’ behind its mission

Financial Times: A 2016 memo has surfaced in which a Facebook executive wrote that the company must pursue its aim of connecting people using “questionable” practices even if it costs lives.

The memo, which was leaked to BuzzFeed in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, said everything Facebook did to grow was “justified”.

The memo, entitled “The Ugly”, was written by Andrew Bosworth, a vice-president at Facebook who has been with the company since the early days. It was dated June 18 2016 and circulated internally at Facebook the day after the death of a Chicago man was shown on Facebook Live.

“Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack co-ordinated on our tools,” Mr Bosworth wrote. “The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good . . . That isn’t something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.”

Mr Bosworth, known as Boz, said this justified “questionable contact importing practices” where users give up their friends’ data, and implied the privacy policy language was meant to deceive with “the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends”.

He suggested Facebook was planning to compromise to get into China, where it is banned, alluding to “the work we will probably have to do in China some day”.
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The memo has surfaced as Facebook came under scrutiny for its data collection practices and battles a growing perception that it is not a force for good.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, distanced himself from the memo, saying that “most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with it strongly”.

“We’ve never believed the ends justify the means,” Mr Zuckerberg said in a statement to BuzzFeed. “We recognise that connecting people isn’t enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people closer together. We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year.”

Mr Bosworth said he did not agree with the post today and did not agree with it when he wrote it. He wrote it to “bring to the surface issues I felt deserved more discussion with the broader company”, he said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“I care deeply about how our product affects people and I take very personally the responsibility I have to make that impact positive.” >>>