Facebook may be investigated simultaneously in many countries
In the wake of Facebook's data scandal, authorities in the US, EU and UK have all announced that they will open investigations into the social network.
According toFinancial Times,Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are pressuring Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress over a series of scandals that have recently exposed the world's largest social network.At the same time, authorities in the US, EU and UK also said they were preparing to investigate Facebook.
"They have a lot of problems. They may have a defense, but I think they're going to be investigated very aggressively," said David Vladeck, former director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Facebook's latest scandal stems from allegations that Cambridge Analytica, the analytics firm that provided data analysis services to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, used an app to secretly harvest data from 50 million Facebook users.
The information collected included a list of users who signed up to use the app on Facebook, their birthdays and their friends. Christopher Wylie, a data expert who worked at Cambridge Analytica, revealed that the company invested up to $1 million in the above data mining campaign, in which the main task was to "collect profiles of millions of Americans and build content aimed at their psychology".
On March 17, Facebook announced that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica's service for "violating its terms of service and will investigate whether the data was properly deleted." However, Facebook does not consider this an information leak because users knew and approved the information they provided on the application.
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Facebook is said to be not innocent in Cambridge Analytica's collection of user information. Photo:Financial Times |
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has complained about US companies ignoring or covering up cyberattacks or leaks to third parties in their regular reports. A representative of the Commission said he would not be surprised if shareholders sued Facebook, especially after the social network's stock price just lost 7% in a single day (March 19).
David Vladeck, a former European Commission official, asserted that "the unauthorized use of Facebook users' personal information for political purposes, if proven, is completely unacceptable." According toWashington Post,Vladeck said that Facebook could theoretically be fined $40,000 per user whose information was exposed, which would be a huge amount if multiplied by 50 million people. This is unlikely to happen in reality, but if it were to be fined, the number would still be very heavy for Facebook.
The Cambridge Analytica crisis comes at a time when the world’s largest social network is under fire and questions are being raised about its involvement in election results. This year, the EU will introduce strict new data protection regulations that could see Facebook fined up to 4% of its global revenue for violations.
MagazineVanity Faireven questioned whether there was a connection between the "Russian advertising" scandal and Cambridge Analytics. The parent company ofCambridge AnalyticsSCL Group met with Russian oil giants to advise on "running US-focused ads and forums."
The huge user network and the data that users "innocently" share with this social network are gold mines for Facebook and those with malicious intentions to exploit. It is not without reason that a #DeleteFacebook campaign is being launched around the world.