Facebook pondered subs amid $100 billion privacy backlash

#307: When The Guardian revealed user data was given to a shady data broker, Zuck and Sandberg pitched the board a radical idea. Now it's back...

Meta considered an ad-free subscription version of Facebook to counter consumer backlash after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the antitrust court heard.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg took the Meta (then Facebook) board a radical idea. People could pay to keep their privacy and get no ads.

The move came as Facebook was shaken by revelations it had passed the user data of millions of users to a shadowy third party to target election messages.

The story was broken by now-Substacker

Carole Cadwalladr

in The Guardian, and kickstarted global concern about privacy which continues to this day.

More than $100 billion was wiped off Meta stock and Zuck was dragged into Congress where he gave a defensive, evasive, and creepy appearance.

“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t, then we don’t deserve to serve you,” he testified robotically.

The impact - and revelations about Russian interference in US elections - led Meta to consider the subscription pivot, the court heard.

Federal Trade Commission lawyers detailed how Zuck, Sandberg, and execs brainstormed trading privacy for paid subscriptions.

The idea was eventually scrapped as Meta’s share price recovered, but now it’s back…

Welcome to a tide of new subs overnight from Google, Yahoo, German media industry association Vaunet in Berlin, whistleblower advocates H Street Law in Washington DC, Adweek in New York (I’ll be there next month), the Advertising Council Australia, British national paper The Mirror (my first national paper back in my early 20s), and prominent news outlet El Canal de Noticias de los Dominicanos in the Dominican Republic, becoming the 80th country to get this newsletter.

¡Gracias por caerle! Un gusto tenerte en casa and welcome to our rapidly growing global community. 🌎

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Now back to the Meta trial, and a new plan to sell your privacy for a price…