After the Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018, things went so badly for Meta (then Facebook) that Mark Zuckerberg was forced to appear before Congress to try to explain what happened. The focus on how much data Facebook has on everyone, including the “shadow profiles” of non-Facebook users, was enough to shake up the financial markets and ultimately prompt Mark Zuckerberg to issue a public apology.
Now we have learned from a slide presented today at the FTC v. Meta hearing during former COO Sheryl Sandberg’s testimony that the company’s board of directors considered offering an ad-free Facebook subscription as a response to the backlash. When users realized that the company’s “free” services were being paid for with their own data, perhaps offering to pay for more privacy could have changed the narrative.
Instead of launching a subscription, the company outlined plans to reduce the amount of data it makes available to external developers. Eventually, in 2023, Meta launched an ad-free subscription, but only in the European Union. The pay-as-you-go model still draws criticism from regulators, and last November, Meta reduced its subscription price by 40 percent.
