Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal.

Back in 2016, Facebook launched a secret operation called 'Project Ghostbusters', aimed at intercepting and deciphering network traffic between users of the Snapchat app and its servers. The ultimate goal was to understand the reasons behind the behaviour of those using the app, so as to be able to compete with Snapchat.

In order to be able to carry out such a search, Meta had to circumvent the system and, according to documents taken from a federal court in California, the company had to develop special technology to bypass the encryption of its competitor apps - it did not only do this with Snapchat, but also Amazon and YouTube.

Many within the company say today that they did not approve of the project at the time.