Staff Reports
A recent report from TechCrunch has blown the lid off a scandalous move by Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, revealing shocking details of efforts to track encrypted usage on competing apps like Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon. In 2016, the big cheese himself directed his executives to come up with a way to snoop on these rival platforms. Talk about a sneaky move!
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Created Secret 'Project Ghostbusters' to Snoop on Snapchat, Other Rivals https://t.co/OidC3HMPRT . #Trump2024 pic.twitter.com/Y2XR4QYFJl
— NahBabyNah (@NahBabyNah) March 27, 2024
The documents show that Zuckerberg was annoyed by the lack of analytics on Snapchat and demanded that his team find a way to get the inside scoop on their traffic. He even suggested using “out of the box” techniques to fulfill his creepy request. Seriously, can you believe the nerve of this guy?
But it gets even worse. The Onavo team, which is part of a VPN app that Facebook grabbed up back in 2013, actually developed software to intercept and decrypt traffic from specific domains on iOS and Android devices. They literally called it “Project Ghostbusters” because they were aiming to bust Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon. Seriously, these guys have no shame.
Even some of Facebook’s own executives were uncomfortable with this sketchy project. Pedro Canahuati, who was the head of security engineering, straight up said, “I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay.” Yeah, you and the rest of us, Pedro!
But despite the concerns, Zuckerberg’s directive to gain an edge over the competition prevailed. It’s like he has no respect for privacy or fairness. The documents also spill the beans about Facebook using third parties to rope people into installing the software without making it clear that it was Onavo doing the spying.
This whole mess has raised major red flags about Meta’s data practices and how much they care about user privacy. A bunch of advertisers are suing Facebook, claiming that this shady behavior unfairly pumped up their ad rates and helped them dominate the social media ads market.
But hey, if you want to know more about this outrageous scandal, head over to TechCrunch for the full scoop. And be sure to keep an eye on Breit…uh, reliable news sources for any updates on this wild ride!
