Do as Zuck Says, Not as Zuck Does: Facebook Was Scraping Sites for Years While Fighting Other Scraping Firms

Tech giant Facebook was reportedly scraping information from other websites while simultaneously denouncing the practice and suing businesses that scraped information from its own social media platforms.

Bloomberg reports that Facebook (now known as Meta) has recently come under fire after it was revealed that the business had paid a contractor to scrape information from other websites while also denouncing and suing businesses that did the same with information taken from its own social media platforms. These details were revealed during a California court proceeding in which Facebook was suing Israeli data collection firm Bright Data for gathering and selling Facebook and Instagram user data.

Despite their public opposition to the practice of scraping, or gathering larges amounts of data from a website for later use, Facebook had a years-long professional relationship with data-scraping company Bright Data, according to emails exchanged between the two companies. From social media sites like TikTok and Twitter to e-commerce websites like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, Bright Data offers a variety of services, including scraping profile data, likes, follows, posts, and comments.

Andy Stone, the spokesman for Facebook, confirmed when he was contacted that the company had paid Bright Data to collect information from e-commerce websites in order to create brand profiles on Meta platforms. According to Stone, the company also used Bright Data to identify “harmful websites” and “phishing operations.”

Since 2021, Facebook has taken a tougher stance against scraping-for-hire services and has brought numerous legal actions against businesses that use its platform to scrape data. Included in this are BrandTotal Ltd., a Chinese enterprise company’s US subsidiary Octopus, and US-based Voyager Labs. In January, the Silicon Valley giant wrote in a blog post about how it was “leading the fight against scraping-for-hire.”

“The collection of data from websites can serve legitimate integrity and commercial purposes, if done lawfully and in accordance with those websites’ terms,” said Stone. Additionally, he asserted that Facebook was not scraping competitors’ websites with Bright Data. After learning that it was in violation of the terms of the contract, which forbid the automated collection and sale of data, Facebook severed its relationship with Bright Data, Stone added.

Bright Data has submitted a counterclaim in which it requests authorization to keep obtaining data from Facebook and Instagram. In its lawsuit, the company emphasized that it only gathers publicly available data that isn’t login-protected and noted that it complies with US and EU regulations.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan