Facebook uses its apps to track users it thinks could threaten employees and offices

From cnbc.com

  • Facebook maintains a list of individuals that its security guards must “be on lookout” for that is comprised of users who’ve made threatening statements against the company on its social network as well as numerous former employees.
  • The company’s information security team is capable of tracking these individuals’ whereabouts using the location data they provide through Facebook’s apps and websites.
  • More than a dozen former Facebook security employees described the company’s tactics to CNBC, with several questioning the ethics of the company’s practices.

In early 2018, a Facebook user made a public threat on the social network against one of the company’s offices in Europe.

Facebook picked up the threat, pulled the user’s data and determined he was in the same country as the office he was targeting. The company informed the authorities about the threat and directed its security officers to be on the lookout for the user.

“He made a veiled threat that ‘Tomorrow everyone is going to pay’ or something to that effect,” a former Facebook security employee told CNBC.

The incident is representative of the steps Facebook takes to keep its offices, executives and employees protected, according to more than a dozen former Facebook employees who spoke with CNBC. The company mines its social network for threatening comments, and in some cases uses its products to track the location of people it believes present a credible threat.

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