Showing posts with label Aleksandr Kogan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aleksandr Kogan. Show all posts

Thursday, March 22, 2018

As #Facebook scandal mushrooms, Zuckerberg vows to 'step up'


Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg vowed Wednesday to "step up" to fix problems at the social media giant, as it fights a snowballing scandal over the hijacking of personal data from millions of its users.

"We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you," Zuckerberg said, in his first public comments on the harvesting of Facebook user data by a British firm linked to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.


Writing on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg announced new steps to rein in the leakage of data to outside developers and third-party apps, while giving users more control over their information through a special toolbar.


Zuckerberg said measures had been in place since 2014 to prevent precisely the sort of abuse revealed at the weekend.


"But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it," he said.

The scandal erupted when a whistleblower revealed that British data consultant Cambridge Analytica (CA) had created psychological profiles on 50 million Facebook users via a personality prediction app, created by a researcher named Aleksandr Kogan.

The app was downloaded by 270,000 people, but also scooped up their friends' data without consent -- as was possible under Facebook's rules at the time.


Facebook says it discovered last week that CA may not have deleted the data as it certified.

"This was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook," Zuckerberg wrote. "But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it."


"We need to fix that."


- Probe by special counsel? -


Zuckerberg's admission follows another day of damaging accusations against the world's biggest social network as calls mounted for investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.


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