The lawsuit filed by Meta against Voyager Labs, Ltd. on January 12th is meritless, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how the software products at issue work and, most importantly, is detrimental to U.S. and global public safety. Law enforcement organizations worldwide use this software to analyze their own internal intelligence data as well as other publicly available information to address critical challenges such as human trafficking, internet crimes against children (ICAC), gang violence, homicide, narcotics trafficking, and terrorism. This award-winning software thus supports the tireless work by these organizations to save lives and improve public safety. We will vigorously contest this matter and feel confident that we will prevail.
We believe that this litigation is merely public theater designed to confuse people into thinking that Meta, whose business model is based at least in part on profiting from sharing customer data with advertisers, is actually taking steps to protect user privacy. We also believe that filing lawsuits is a well-documented part of Meta’s strategy to deflect attention from the significant scrutiny it has received.
But in its apparent eagerness to file lawsuits, Meta has opted to sue a company that, contrary to Meta’s claims, does not provide a “scraping-for-hire service” or “surveillance service,” does not sell data of any kind, and whose software helps law enforcement investigators analyze only publicly available information that social media users have freely elected to share.
Unfortunately, the principal consequence of Meta’s lawsuit is likely to be the potential obstruction of critical work by law enforcement agencies that may in turn undermine public safety.
