The Justice Department announced Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against Facebook , alleging the social media giant discriminated against U.S. citizens seeking a digital visa application by accepting applicants who did not submit copies of their Egyptian passports.
Under the visa application process, if a U.S. citizen applies to receive a digital visa and is denied, the State Department reviews the case and passes the censored party's name on to the Ethiopian Vice Consulate. The embassy pays $500 to get the visa corrected, all without telling the person's family.
In addition, the lawsuit said, a company-produced documentary that found glitches with the application process was aired in Egypt during Facebook's eight-minute ad.
"American systems were not broken, but simply distorted to make it appear that fundamental liberties in the United States were being constrained inside the country itself," Justice Department Acting Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in a statement.
Although Facebook didn't accept photos of an applicant's visa application, the company did insist that the applicant purchase a copy of the document from it. That made adding a couple of pages of the document nearly impossible because of screen size restrictions and buying the entire digital visa application was too expensive, the lawsuit said.
The State Department cracked the visa rules by requiring applicants to submit USB drives containing their original copies of their passport and other desired documents. Corpses can't drive, and many with one expired passport don't have serviceable USB drives.
"To best serve the interests of our foreign visitors, the State Department has no room for other forms of electronic identification in its electronic visa application system," State Department general counsel Harold Koh said in a statement. "Any documents published and compiled by any media outlet or verified by U.S. Consulates abroad is unacceptable."
In a letter to Facebook, the State Department said it created the five-page digital visa application in December 2012 with a goal of preventing variations of the same application due to automated focus group test results and automated disabled script members.
The 300-page decision noted that performing that told us "to a great extent" the allegedly discriminatory group review his "unsteady persona and his [tied to the] mafia."
How Facebook moderates content during its ad campaign matters.
In the aftermath of the May 25 demonstrations marking the anniversary of President Mohamed Morsi resignation, business bets in Egypt might be paying off, while other Facebook ads might not.
And in countries where the U.S. government is not funding local journalism and the mainstream media is controlled by government supporters, providing charter flights to NFL players to Cairo to show solidarity might
Under the visa application process, if a U.S. citizen applies to receive a digital visa and is denied, the State Department reviews the case and passes the censored party's name on to the Ethiopian Vice Consulate. The embassy pays $500 to get the visa corrected, all without telling the person's family.
In addition, the lawsuit said, a company-produced documentary that found glitches with the application process was aired in Egypt during Facebook's eight-minute ad.
"American systems were not broken, but simply distorted to make it appear that fundamental liberties in the United States were being constrained inside the country itself," Justice Department Acting Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in a statement.
Although Facebook didn't accept photos of an applicant's visa application, the company did insist that the applicant purchase a copy of the document from it. That made adding a couple of pages of the document nearly impossible because of screen size restrictions and buying the entire digital visa application was too expensive, the lawsuit said.
The State Department cracked the visa rules by requiring applicants to submit USB drives containing their original copies of their passport and other desired documents. Corpses can't drive, and many with one expired passport don't have serviceable USB drives.
"To best serve the interests of our foreign visitors, the State Department has no room for other forms of electronic identification in its electronic visa application system," State Department general counsel Harold Koh said in a statement. "Any documents published and compiled by any media outlet or verified by U.S. Consulates abroad is unacceptable."
In a letter to Facebook, the State Department said it created the five-page digital visa application in December 2012 with a goal of preventing variations of the same application due to automated focus group test results and automated disabled script members.
The 300-page decision noted that performing that told us "to a great extent" the allegedly discriminatory group review his "unsteady persona and his [tied to the] mafia."
How Facebook moderates content during its ad campaign matters.
In the aftermath of the May 25 demonstrations marking the anniversary of President Mohamed Morsi resignation, business bets in Egypt might be paying off, while other Facebook ads might not.
And in countries where the U.S. government is not funding local journalism and the mainstream media is controlled by government supporters, providing charter flights to NFL players to Cairo to show solidarity might
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