Facebook’s privacy settings and policies have taken a hammering over recent weeks. But it’s now been revealed Facebook execs have been able to delete private messages. That means Mark Zuckerberg and some of his deputies can reach into your inbox and remove messages they’ve sent you. While the many says it’s a way to protect the company from hacking, it’s another example of Facebook’s tone deafness when it comes to the privacy of their members.
People using the recently added “Download a copy of your Facebook data” feature have discovered that messages that were sent by Zuckerberg and other senior Facebook executives have disappeared. However, replies to these message remain, leaving an incomplete conversation.
Facebook told Techcruch “After Sony Pictures’ emails were hacked in 2014 we made a number of changes to protect our executives’ communications. These included limiting the retention period for Mark’s messages in Messenger. We did so in full compliance with our legal obligations to preserve messages”.
Trust is perhaps the most valuable commodity a social media company trades in. Facebook has made a lot of very large trust withdrawals from their account with users. This ability to reach into people’s inboxes, without any notification or explicit permission is yet another example of how the company has contemptuously treated their users as little more than a commodity.
The word is Facebook is preparing a similar “Unsend” feature for everyone an they promise their execs won’t use their retraction feature until we all get it. But it’s clear Facebook takes it own privacy more seriously than its users.
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