Facebook bans seven ?cyber mercenary? companies from its platforms

Facebook has banned seven "surveillance-for-hire" companies from its platforms and will send warning notices to 48,000 people who the company believes were targeted by malicious activity, following a months-long investigation into the "cyber mercenary" industry.

The social media company said on Thursday that its investigation had revealed new details about the way the surveillance companies enable their clients to "indiscriminately" target people across the internet to collect intelligence about them, manipulate them - and ultimately compromise their devices.

Among the surveillance companies that Facebook named in its investigation and banned from its platforms are:

The investigation conducted by Facebook comes as the company is itself facing intense scrutiny in Washington and around the world following accusations by a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, that it enabled the spread of hate speech and disinformation.

The Facebook investigation is significant, however, because it reveals new details about the way parts of the surveillance industry use social media - from Facebook to Instagram - to create fake accounts to deceive their targets and conceal their own activities.

While many of the companies claim that they are hired to target criminals and terrorists, Facebook said the industry "regularly" enabled its clients to target journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes and human rights activists and their families.

"Our hope is to contribute to the broader understanding of the harms this industry represents worldwide and call on the democratic governments to take further steps to help protect people and impose oversight on the sellers of ubiquitous spyware," the company said. It added that it had not only removed the companies' fake accounts from their platforms, but also issued cease and desist orders and would work to ensure that the companies did not seek to re-engage on their platforms.