Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Facebook is being criticized by politicians and researchers for banning the accounts of academics who analyzed political ads and misinformation on the social network.
In press statements, Senator Mark R. Warner (D-VA) said the company’s actions were “deeply concerning,” while Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said she was “deeply troubled” by the news. Creator of the Firefox browser, Mozilla, which conducted a privacy audit of the academics’ work, said Facebook’s justification for banning the researchers was “wrong.”
“In our view, those claims simply do not hold water.”
“Facebook claims the accounts were shut down due to privacy problems with the Ad Observer,” wrote Mozilla’s chief security officer Marshall Erwin in a blog post. “In our view,…
