Tech giant Facebook is preparing to launch multiple branded coffee shops throughout the United Kingdom.
Referred to as the “Facebook Café,” the first of five pop-up locations will appear on London’s Great Eastern Street on August 28 while four other locations will show up from then until September 5.
The idea is that the social network will offer free drinks to anyone willing to carry out a privacy checkup on their account at the shops. Britain’s Evening Standard says the decision comes after a recent poll found that 27 percent of London residents did not know how to change their privacy settings.
The move also comes amid Facebook’s attempt to rebrand itself as a privacy-conscious company following numerous scandals.
Facebook was recently issued a $5 billion fine by the FTC over incidents including the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Shortly after at a company-wide event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that privacy would be “more central than ever” to Facebook’s vision. Just weeks later it was revealed that Facebook had been using human contractors to transcribe audio recordings made by users with the Messenger app, raising concerns that the company still hadn’t learned its lesson.
Whether residents of the UK will be accepting of Facebook’s temporary coffee shops and attempts to enhance user privacy remains to be seen.
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