Apple threatened to remove Facebook from the App Store over human trafficking

According to a new report published by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook knew that a massive human trafficking service was operating on its platform and did nothing about it. After a BBC report in 2019 claimed that human traffickers were selling people using Facebook, Apple threatened to remove the Facebook app from App Store.

Back in 2019, the report from the BBC said that human traffickers in the Middle East were using Facebook to arrange the sale of their victims. The traffickers reportedly masqueraded as employment agencies that were actually a front for the trading and selling of enslaved people and used Facebook to advertise those fake employment agencies.

According to internal Facebook documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Apple threatened to remove Facebook from the App Store unless it took action against the practice.

One Facebook researcher asked whether "the issue was known to Facebook before BBC inquiry and Apple escalation?" The answer:

"Yes. Throughout 2018 and H1 2019 we conducted the global Understanding Exercise in order to fully understand how domestic servitude manifests on our platform across its entire life cycle: recruitment, facilitation, and exploitation".

It should be mentioned that the Wall Street Journal has no comment from Apple and Facebook.