WASHINGTON Before the scandal broke over their improper use of Facebook user data, British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and its parent, SCL Group, plied their trade of political subterfuge for clients in developing countries.

Call it techno-colonialism the idea that the leaner parts of the world are where you go to conduct your beta tests. Like so much else about Cambridge Analytica and SCL, they were merely putting a sinister flourish on something the tech industry does as a matter of course. The most obvious example comes from the company that most wants to distance itself from Cambridge Analytica: Facebook.

Back in 2015, the social media giant faced a wave of criticism for deploying a new program in India, called Free Basics, that handed out mobile phones to the poor that operated only Facebook products. One of the companys defenders, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, blurted out on Twitter, Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now? (He would later apologize.)

But the kerfuffle didnt stop Facebook from continuing to treat smaller and developing countries as its corporate testing ground.

In the fall of 2017, Facebook decided to run a test in six countries Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka that split users feeds into two separate streams of posts. One was devoted to updates from family and friends; the other to official pages of organizations like news sites and political figures. No one from Facebook told anyone in those countries the company would be running this experiment. News publishers were left in dark. So were non-governmental organizations, political parties and activists.