On March 17, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm that worked with Trump for his 2016 campaign and its related company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), stole data on 50 million Facebook users and kept it. Facebook users are now criticizing the social media website for not adequately policing this behavior.
While Facebook has now suspended both Cambridge and SCL as they investigate whether the companies retained Facebook user data that had been provided by a third-party researcher, which is a violation of Facebook’s terms, they say they knew about the breach but had received legally binding vows from the companies that all of the data was deleted.
The data was gathered using an app called “thisisyourdigitallife,” a platform in which users could take personality quizzes. Users who downloaded the app gave it access to their personal data kept on Facebook about where they live, their likes and if their privacy settings allowed, who they were friends with.
But users do not just put the blame on the data analysis groups, they blame Facebook. Wired addresses the concern: “After two years in which Facebook has struggled to explain how Russian propaganda and fake news proliferated on the platform, it now must explain one of its fundamental flaws: Facebook offers unprecedented data to its paying clients, but has next to no controls in place to ensure that data will be handled properly.”
In response to the backlash from users, Facebook has decided to change their privacy tools. On March 28, the social media website introduced changes to their privacy tools, including making data setting controls easier to find, and privacy shortcuts that will make an account more secure, control personal information, control the ads on one’s personal page and manage who sees users’ profiles and profile information. The new changes also give users the option to download the data Facebook has accumulated from users more easily, as well as the option to delete Facebook data.
The social media company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, responded to the controversy on Facebook, saying “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.” He continued, “I want to thank all of you who continue to believe in our mission and work to build this community together. I know it takes longer to fix all these issues than we’d like, but I promise you we’ll work through this and build a better service over the long term.”
Zuckerberg will testify before Congress because of the data controversy, as requested by three congressional committees.
