‘Security chief leaves Facebook after disagreement about tackling disinformation’

The New York Times reported, citing sources within Facebook, that the company’s head of security, Alex Stamos, plans to resign in August. That would be the result of differences of opinion about how to tackle disinformation. Stamos says he is still active.

The newspaper writes that Stamos, chief security officer at Facebook, was in favor of more openness about Russian interference on the platform and a restructuring to better address the problems. In this, however, he differed with colleagues. That would eventually have resulted in him being reassigned in December.

Stamos then said he would stay on until August to supervise the transfer of his duties. His team of 120 people would have been reduced to 3, the sources report to the newspaper. Stamos himself responds He responded to the post by stating that although he has a different role, he is still active at Facebook and that he is more concerned with “emerging security risks and election security.”

According to the newspaper’s sources, tension between the security team and the legal and policy teams has been a major source of friction within Facebook. Sandy Pariklas, who worked at Facebook until 2012, told the paper that “the people whose job it is to protect users was always fighting those who wanted to make money for the company.”

Apart from leading a small team, Stamos would now have the task of ‘security communication’. For example, the communications team is said to have asked him to defend Facebook after the news about the collection of Facebook data from 50 million people by Cambridge Analytica came out. After his tweets led to critical responses, deleted he them again.

Following the news about the data collection, the European Parliament, among others, said it wanted to conduct an investigation into the case. In addition, Facebook had requested an external audit of Cambridge Analytica, but said Monday it would not go ahead at the request of the British privacy watchdog. In the meantime, more news about Cambridge Analytica has also come out. Channel 4, for example, shows footage showing the company using bribery and propaganda to influence elections. According to the NOS, the company is fighting this.