Archives: Controversies

Facebook grants a blue tick to verified accounts of public personalities, brands and celebrities (including politicians and artists). In India, former Member of Parliament and legislator Ajay Singh Chautala who is serving a 10-year jail term for the teachers' recruitment scam, still continues to hold the person of eminence status with the 'blue tick' on his Facebook account.

In September 2018, a software bug resulted in photos that had been uploaded to Facebook accounts, but not been "published" (and which therefore should have remained private between the user and Facebook), beig exposed to app developers.

The Myanmar crisis began in August 2017, leading to nearly 7,00,000 Rohingyas fleeing their homes and crossing into neighbouring Bangladesh. The social network was identified as a factor in contributing to ethnic tension and violence. This led to the platform cracking down on user accounts of the military leadership of that country.

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018 which revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent and used it for political purposes. It has been described as a watershed moment in the public understanding of personal data and led to a massive fall in Facebook's stock price and called for tighter regulation of tech companies' use of data. Cambridge Analytica shut down operations in 2018 in the course of the scandal, although related firms still exist.

The Sri Lankan government has accused Facebook for failing to curb the alleged hate speech on its platform that, it contended, contributed to the riots of March 2018. The riots left three people dead and placed the country under a state of emergency. The government accused Facebook of not tackling with the issue rapidly, leading to an escalation of violence. The episode has led to questions being raised across South Asia about the capacity and responsibility of Facebook in monitoring regions with millions of users who post in various languages and dialects.

In July 2017, GMA News reported that a number of secret Philippine Facebook groups that had been engaging in the illegal activity of sharing obscene photos of women. The National Bureau of Investigation of the country warned members of such groups they could be liable for violating child pornography and anti-voyeurism laws.

Facebook Live, a feature introduced in August 2015 for celebrities and gradually rolled out for regular users let users broadcast live videos, with the intention of being able to present public events or private celebrations. However, the feature has been used to record multiple crimes, deaths, and violent incidents, causing significant media attention towards its use.

In 2016, Facebook was criticised for removing content regarding the Kashmir dispute, triggering a response from several major media groups against its policies on censorship. Social media companies such as Facebook have been under increasing pressure to limit the spread of extremist propaganda - but have also faced criticism that they have gone too far.

In 2011, a lawsuit filed against Facebook known as 'Fraley vs.Fraley' cited violations against the social network under both the federal and California state law. It concerned "Sponsored Stories" that used Facebook members' names and photos in advertisements without their permission. The case was settled in 2013, with settlement cheques mailed to class members in November 2016.

Facebook has been accused of censoring conservative news according to a 2016 report. The revelations that came as a result of the report undermined any presumption of Facebook as a neutral pipeline for news, or that the trending news module was a purely algorithmically-driven list of what people were actually talking about.