Facebook considered ad-free subscriptions after the Cambridge Analytica scandal

After the Cambridge Analytica data scandal broke in 2018, issues received unhealthy sufficient for Meta (then Fb) that Mark Zuckerberg needed to face Congress to attempt to clarify what had occurred. The deal with how a lot knowledge Fb had on everybody, together with “shadow profiles” for non-Fb customers, was sufficient to shake monetary markets and, ultimately, immediate a public apology tour from Mark Zuckerberg.

Now we’ve realized from a slide presented immediately at FTC v. Meta throughout former COO Sheryl Sandberg’s testimony that the corporate’s board of administrators thought-about providing ad-free Fb subscriptions as a part of its response to the backlash. With customers realizing that the corporate’s “free” companies had been paid for by their very own knowledge, possibly providing a strategy to pay for extra privateness might change the narrative.

The Proposed Product and Objective bullet factors:

As a substitute of launching the subscription, the corporate outlined plans to cut back the quantity of knowledge it made accessible to exterior builders. Meta ultimately launched an ad-free subscription possibility in 2023, however solely within the European Union. The “pay or consent” mannequin has still drawn criticism from regulators over Meta’s implementation, and final November, it lower the value of the subscription by 40 %.