Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth justified the company's data collection practices in a 2016 memo as germane to its over-arching goal of connecting people.
“The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned,” Bosworth (known as Boz) wrote in a memo labeled “The Ugly,” according to a BuzzFeed report. “That isn't something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.”
The outspoken vice president noted “that's why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.”
The memo surfaced as the social media company is trying to restore user trust after Cambridge Analytica harvested the data from the Facebook accounts of 50 million Americans without their consent.
