Reported by Motherboard, when Facebook was starting to build its spyware cloaked in a VPN product, Onavo Protect for iOS and Android, the social media company reached out to the controversial company NSO Group that creates spyware for government agencies...
Apple made Facebook remove Onavo Protect from the App Store in August of 2018.
Then in 2019 Facebook repackaged it as a “Research app” and tried to pay teens to sideload it on their devices.