Meta Platforms, Inc. — Ethics Grade D+

Meta Platforms, Inc. receives an overall ethics grade of D+ (35/100) on CancelCo's corporate accountability database. Sector: Technology. Market cap: Mega Cap.

Category scores

• labor: 25
• privacy: 10
• consumer: 20
• environment: 55
• humanRights: 15

Documented incidents (4)

• Cambridge Analytica data scandal (high, 2018) — Personal data of 87 million users harvested without consent for political advertising. $5B FTC fine.
• Internal research on teen mental health (high, 2021) — Whistleblower revealed Facebook knew Instagram was harmful to teen mental health but suppressed findings.
• Role in Myanmar genocide (high, 2021) — UN report found Facebook was used to incite violence against Rohingya people. Platform failed to moderate hate speech.
• Content moderator PTSD (high, 2023) — Lawsuits from content moderators in Kenya and elsewhere alleging PTSD from viewing graphic content for $2/hour.

Documented good deeds

• Open-source AI models (Llama) — Released Llama AI models to the research community, advancing open-source AI development.

Ethical alternatives

• Signal — End-to-end encrypted, non-profit, no data collection. Open source.
• Mastodon — Decentralized, open-source social network. No ads, no algorithms, no data harvesting.