📄 Facebook tells employees to hold all their documents for legal reasons

Things are not quieting down at Facebook (ahem, Meta), and it doesn’t appear they will anytime soon based on instructions the company has given employees, according to the NYT. 

• The social media giant sent a memo last week: It told employees to preserve internal documents and communications dating back to 2016 and to stop using ephemeral messages for work communications. 

• There’s a phrase for this tactic: a legal hold. The note sent to employees mentioned “governments and legislative bodies” had already launched investigations of the company, but it gave no further details. This move follows other instructions to employees from the last year on how to respond to antitrust issues.

Recapping Facebook’s problems

The latest scrutiny on Facebook has come because of internal messages and documents, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Facebook has also told employees to stop leaking to the media, per the NYT, and to limit the number of employees who see communications about election safety and platform safety.

The Verdict     

Employees weren’t told to preserve messages related to some of Facebook’s other products, like WhatsApp and its AR offerings.