Are we watching the plot for The Social Network 2 unfold?
The backlash against Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal continues as WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has thrown his considerable weight behind the #deleteFacebook campaign after it was revealed the social media site had been working with the controversial data firm.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
He might not look like it, but the man above is worth over €4.5 billion after WhatsApp was sold to Facebook back in 2014. Along with his co-founder Jan Koum, Acton sold the innovative messaging service for $19 billion.
Facebook is under increasing pressure to explain its privacy safeguards that protect its users’ data from regulators and politicians in both the UK and the US. Mark Zuckerberg has yet to respond directly to the controversy surrounding his company, which he started from scratch in 2004, despite calls for him to explain to MPs in person after Damian Collins – Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee – wrote to him calling it a “catastrophic” failure.
Meanwhile, Cambridge Analytica themselves have suspender their chief executive Alexander Nix, after recordings were found of him making a series of boasts that the data firm had been instrumental in the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Every Facebook user generates a vast amount of personal data, not just through the personal and biographical details they share with the site, but also through every interaction – be it likes, or comments, or shares, or even which pages they view and which advertisements they click on. Facebook also receives data on where you are and what device you are using.
Users can view exactly what information they are sharing, and there are options to limit the data collected by the app, although there are options to delete and limit the info they can obtain, although this is usually far from obvious in the settings themselves.
On Monday night Channel 4 also aired a documentary about Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in election rigging.
The data firm was suspended from Facebook last week after it was revealed that it had failed to delete the data on 50 million users, and investigations remain ongoing.
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