Facebook 'directed massive lobbying campaign at politicians around the world
Facebook
'directed massive lobbying campaign at politicians around the world and called
Irish PM a 'great friend' in battle against new data privacy laws'
·
Facebook
executives met with policy makers in Davos, Switzerland, in 2014
·
Documents
reveal they tried to influence Canada, Brazil and all 28 EU states
·
Facebook
said they had 'great relationship' with Irish prime minster Enda Kenny
·
At time
Ireland had presidency of EU and Facebook wanted to influence policy
·
Facebook tried to influence politicians
including George Osborne during a lobbying campaign
against new data privacy laws.
Documents seen
by the Observer and Computer Weekly reveal that the social media giant tried to
influence countries including Canada, Brazil and all 28 EU states.
Sheryl Sandberg,
chief operating officer of Facebook, asked then chancellor of the exchequer Mr
Osborne to 'really help shape the proposals' about European data legislation at
the time by being 'more vocal,' reports Computer Weekly.
She even
invited one of his children, who was 11 at the time, to a Facebook office when
Mr Osborne told him they were 'desperate' for their own account on the site.
The pair met at the World Economic Forum in 2013, in
Davos, Switzerland, where Facebook staff met with numerous policy makers.
The memo from their meeting reveals that Mr Osborne asked
whether Facebook would be interested in investing in Tech City, in East
London.
More than half of young women on Facebook have been
harassed while on the site
A poll has found that more than half of young women who
use Facebook have been harassed on the site.
Research done by Survation for Level Up found 57 per
cent of 18 to 24-year-old women had been harassed and 45 per cent of 25 to
34-year-olds had.
1,016 Facebook users were questioned in the survey.
Six in 10 women who had been harassed said they had been
sent graphic or abusive content.
Carys Afoko, the executive director of Level Up, said:
'It's time its executives listened to women instead of algorithms.'
Jessica
Stone, 26, told the Sunday Times she was stalked on Facebook.
She reported the man more than 30 times but got a 'robot
response.'
Ms Stone had his account blocked but it wasn't taken down
until a year later.
She's now had a Skype meeting with the social media
giants global safety policy manager to ask them to improve policies on stalking
and harassment.
Towards the end of the meeting Marne Levine, then
Facebook's vice-president of global public policy, is said to have brought up
Sandberg's feminist book.
Mr Osborne then offered to host a reception for the
book, Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead, at Downing Street.
Mr Osborne told the Observer he did not lobby
the EU because of the meeting with Facebook while in Switzerland.
The internal memo was seen after documents were seized
from Ted Kramer, founder of app Six4Three, who is involved in a court case
with Facebook.
Also revealed in the documents was Facebook's 'great
relationship' with Ireland.
Facebook claimed to have encouraged the then Irish prime
minster Enda Kenny, who was a 'friend' of the company, to help influence the
Data Protection Directive.
At the time Ireland had the six-month long presidency of
the European Union and Sandberg and Kenny met again the following year, again
at Davos.
Ireland has
an important role in regulating tech companies in Europe because its data
protection commissioner acts for all the member states, reports the Guardian.
Facebook has also made lots of investments in Ireland and
has an office in Dublin which has created numerous of jobs.
A spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian: 'Like the
other documents that were cherrypicked and released in violation of a court
order last year, these by design tell one side of a story and omit important
context.'
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