Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the Facebook is to be auditioned before the American Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, as part of the scandal of personal data leakage transmitted to the British company Cambridge Analytica. In the text of his intervention, he recognises a personal “mistake”.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going to tell US Congress at hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday that he made a personal “mistake” by not doing enough to fight the network’s misuse.
“We have not done enough to prevent these from being used in a malicious way.” We did not take a broad measure of our responsibilities and it was a big mistake. It was my mistake and I am sorry.
In this text, it once again mentions the measures are already taken and the measures promised to rectify the issue, the umpteenth attempt to limit the damage of a scandal that is costly to Facebook in terms of image and has dropped its stock market value.
The hearings before US parliamentarians on Tuesday and Wednesday will be a test for the young leader of 33 years and the social network he created, which today targets more than two billion members.
Restoring trust
The world’s largest social network is being criticized for leaking the personal data of millions of users according to Facebook-that have arrived in the hands of the analysis company Cambridge Analytica (CA). It was used for Republican candidate Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidential election in 2016.
Anxious to pave the way for these hearings before parliamentary committees in Washington, Mr. Zuckerberg did interviews in recent weeks, promising to do better protect the data of users.
Alert users
It’s also Monday that Facebook promised to start informing-via an alert on their news feed-its users whose data could have fallen without them knowing it in the hands of CA via a psychological testing application, downloaded on Facebook by about 300,000 people.
At the time, in 2013, the system allowed this type of external applications to access the profile of those who had downloaded it but also to those of their friends, a possibility removed since that explains the very large number of members potentially Concerned.
The privacy parameters–judged by many incomprehensible or misleading–should also start on Monday to be more readable and more easily accessible to users.
“You know you cannot just give people a way to express themselves. It must also be ensured that this means is not used to orchestrate foreign interference in elections from abroad or to disseminate false information, said Mark Zuckerberg in an interview with the Atlantic magazine.
Influence on Elections
Facebook announced on Sunday that it had suspended another data analysis firm, Cubeyou, after the CNBC channel had claimed that it had collected personal data from users without their knowledge for commercial purposes, via psychological tests Presented as purely scientific.
And on Friday, the social network had promised to verify the identities of people or organizations passing election advertisements or tackling controversial societal issues.
A new sign of goodwill, Facebook also agreed to collaborate with independent researchers on a study to evaluate its influence in elections and democracy.
Calls to leave the social network
So far, Facebook claims to have seen only a tiny financial impact of the CA scandal despite a movement calling users to leave the social network.
Facebook draws almost all of its revenue from advertising, finely thanks to the personal data that users put on the social network.
Symbol however of the disaffection for the network, the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, announced his departure from Facebook. “People give all the details of their lives to Facebook,” he said in the daily USA Today. “Facebook makes a lot of money with advertising revenue on it.” These profits are all based on the information of the users but the users do not receive any profit in return, he said.
