Facebook objected to the expansion of Australia's privacy laws and claims to have lobbied the US ambassador to Australia, according to internal documents leaked from the company.

Key points: Internal documents from Facebook show the company was concerned about Australia bolstering its privacy laws in 2012

Internal documents from Facebook show the company was concerned about Australia bolstering its privacy laws in 2012 The documents say Facebook raised its concerns with the US ambassador to Australia at the time, Jeffrey Bleich

The documents say Facebook raised its concerns with the US ambassador to Australia at the time, Jeffrey Bleich Mr Bleich says he does not recall any such discussion with Facebook and says he would never lobby on behalf of any company

An email exchange among a group of Facebook employees reveals that in 2012, the company deliberated internally over changes to Australia's privacy regime.

In reference to a discussion Facebook claims to have had with the former US ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, one email read: "We raised the issue of the Australian Government trying to extend their jurisdiction and directly regulate Facebook through new privacy regulation."

The emails were published online in February 2019 on Github, and parts of them were reported at the time.

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The documents give a rare insight into how Facebook views Australia's privacy landscape.

It is not clear what specific changes to the privacy regime Facebook were concerned about.

The then-Labor government passed a number of measures in 2012 designed to bolster the protection of Australians' personal information.

It included new principles around the handling of personal data offshore, and bolstered penalties that could be applied to entities.



Facebook says documents only 'tell one side of story'



Former United States ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, in 2013. ( ABC News )

In a statement a Facebook spokesman said: "Like the other documents that were cherry-picked and released in violation of a court order last year, these documents by design tell one side of a story and omit important context."



He said the company proactively met with a range of stakeholders, and that this "active, open engagement is not unique to Facebook or our operations in Australia, and we will continue to do more of this as we work with governments around the world on a clear framework of rules for the internet."



In a statement, Mr Bleich told 7.30 he did not recall any discussion with Facebook representatives about the reach of Australian privacy laws, or with the Australian Government.

"If an issue like that came back to me, requiring that I have a direct exchange with a member of Government, then I would likely have remembered the issue," he said.



"For that reason, I'm fairly sure that I never discussed whatever pending legislation is referenced here with the Australian Government."

He also said that as ambassador he would never lobby on behalf of any company.

"My responsibility was to advance US and alliance interests," he said.



"Accordingly, my only interest in any US commercial entities was to ensure that US businesses were treated fairly, and to advance US economic interests around the globe."



Push to break Facebook up

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg testifying before a US Senate committee about the company's use and protection of user data last year. ( Reuters: Aaron P. Bernstein )

Facebook has faced heavy criticism over the past two years and is now facing a push to end its digital dominance.

The company has come under scrutiny for how it handles users' personal information after the Cambridge Analytica data breach in March 2018 saw the data of 50 million users mined from the social media giant.

The company is also facing increasing regulatory action from governments around the world following the Christchurch mass shooting.

Australia has already passed new laws introducing offences for social media companies that fail to quickly remove "abhorrent" videos or imagery.

"If you think about Facebook, five years ago people couldn't wait to get on. More and more people were signing up, it was seen as this super friendly online community that people trusted," Melbourne University lecturer Suelette Dreyfus told 7.30.

Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp. ( ABC News )

"Now I think today people are much more wary," she said.



In the United States there is a growing push to curb the vast power of the company by breaking it up.

"You've got to break up Facebook, because it's just too much power in too few hands," said Matt Stoller, a fellow at US thinktank Open Markets Institute.

"The easiest way to do it is to separate Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. That doesn't really require anything, it's pretty easy. The result of mergers — just undo the mergers."



Facebook's former Australian managing director, Stephen Scheeler, told 7.30 that breaking the company up would not necessarily solve the broader concerns.

"My sense is that breaking up Facebook is not going to solve the perceived problems that social media has —issues such as the propagation of hate speech, the creation of filter bubbles, the impacts on democracy and how opinions get formed."

"I don't think these are being caused by the scale of just what Facebook is, they're being caused by the scale of what the internet is, and what social media is."