Facebook sends cease-and-desist letter asking for Unfollow Everything to be scrapped | ZDNet

Unfollow Everything creator Louis Barclay tweeted on Thursday that he has received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook’s lawyers requesting for his browser extension to be taken down.

“I received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook’s lawyers,” he said.

“They told me I’d been banned from Facebook for life because I make Unfollow Everything, an extension to help people use Facebook less.”

Unfollow Everything is a browser extension that allows users to delete their News Feed by unfollowing their friends, groups, and pages. The browser extension was created to help Facebook users spend less time on the social media platform.

According to Barclay, he received the cease-and-desist letter shortly after being banned from the social media platform last month. He has also written a more detailed response to the cease-and-desist letter and ban on Slate.

For Facebook, Barclay’s tweet adds to the list of criticisms that have been laid against the company and social media platforms generally this past week. On Tuesday, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who appeared before the US Senate for its inquiry into Facebook’s cooperation, shared scathing information about Facebook, accusing the social media giant of intentionally hiding vital information from the public for profit.

During her testimony to the Senate, she labelled the company as “morally bankrupt” and that “the choices being made inside of Facebook” were “disastrous for our children, our privacy, and our democracy”.

Yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison criticised tech giants for the conduct that occurs on their platforms, stating that social media platforms like Facebook have become a “coward’s palace” for trolls.

Donald Trump files another request to try to get social media accounts back

At the same time, former US president Donald Trump has filed a preliminary injunction [PDF] against Facebook at federal court, requesting for the tech giant to reinstate his banned accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

The preliminary injunction, filed on Thursday, is similar to the one Trump filed against Twitter late last week, which requested for the court to force Twitter to reinstate his account.

In July, the former president filed three lawsuits in Florida courts against Facebook, Google, and Twitter, accusing the companies of violating Trump’s first amendment rights when they banned him from their social media platforms earlier this year for making posts linked to an attack on Congress by his heavily-armed followers.

Both of Trump’s requests made over the past week are part of those lawsuits.

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