Facebook's Double Standard on Privacy: Employees vs. Everyone Else

Similar protections don't exist for the two billion-plus Facebook users who don't work for the company, the people said. The dual standard for employees versus regular users is a window on Facebook's struggle over how much to disclose to users about how their data is handled--an issue Facebook has recently tried to address with a raft of changes to the platform. A Facebook spokesman said the company has had discussions about issuing these types of alerts to all users. "In thinking about how we could do something similar for everyone, there are a number of important considerations that come into play--for example, how we can avoid tipping off bad actors or hindering our work to prevent real world harm in cases of abuse or other sensitive situations," the spokesman added. The system can be abused: Earlier this week, Facebook fired a security engineer who had bragged to a woman he met on a dating app about his access to private user information, according to a person familiar with the matter.