Mozilla and German bank Commerzbank suspends ads on FB; Hashtag #DeleteFacebook trending online.
Published: 25 Mar 2018 - 10:40 pm | Last Updated: 05 Nov 2021 - 12:36 am
A man reads a full-page advertisment, taken out by Mark Zuckerberg, the chairman and chief executive officer of Facebook to apologise for the large-scale leak of personal data from the social network, on the backpage of a newspaper, in Ripon, England on
NEW YORK: Facebook's CEO apologized for the Cambridge Analytica scandal with ads in multiple US and British newspapers Sunday, saying the social media platform doesn't deserve to hold personal information if it can't protect it.
The ads signed by Mark Zuckerberg said a quiz app built by a Cambridge University researcher leaked Facebook data of millions of people four years ago. "This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again," the ads said.
Facebook's privacy practices have come under fire after Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm affiliated with President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, got data inappropriately.
The firm is alleged to have created psychological profiles to influence how people vote or even think about politics and society.
Facebook's stock value has dropped more than $70 billion since the revelations were first published.
Among the newspapers with the ads were The New York Times and The Washington Post in the U.S. and The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph in the United Kingdom.
The plain black text apology on a white background, with only a tiny Facebook logo, appeared in Sunday publications including The Observer - one of the newspapers whose reporting on the issue has sent Facebook's share price tumbling.
The ads said Facebook is limiting the data apps receive when users sign in. It's also investigating every app that had access to large amounts of data. "We expect there are others. And when we find them, we will ban them and tell everyone affected," the ads stated.
Cambridge Analytica got the data from a researcher who paid 270,000 Facebook users to complete a psychological profile quiz back in 2014. But the quiz gathered information on their friends as well, bringing the total number of people affected to about 50 million.
The Trump campaign paid the firm $6 million during the 2016 election, although it has since distanced itself from Cambridge.
Facebook CEO said the social media platform doesn't deserve to hold personal information if it can't protect it.
The ads signed by Mark Zuckerberg said a quiz app built by a Cambridge University researcher leaked Facebook data of millions of people four years ago. "This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again," the ads said.
The Trump campaign paid the firm $6 million during the 2016 election, although it has since distanced itself from Cambridge.
The world's largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States.
This follows allegations by a whistleblower that British consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed users' information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.
Zuckerberg said an app built by a university researcher "leaked Facebook data of millions of people in 2014".
"This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time," Zuckerberg said, reiterating an apology first made last week in U.S. television interviews.
Cambridge Analytica says it initially believed the data had been obtained in line with data protection laws, and later deleted it at Facebook's request. The consultancy said it did not use the data in work it did for the 2016 U.S. election.
On Friday night, investigators from Britain's data watchdog searched the London offices of Cambridge Analytica for several hours.
Zuckerberg said Facebook would give users more information and control about who can access their data.
"Thank you for believing in this community. I promise to do better for you," he wrote.
Advertisers Mozilla and German bank Commerzbank have suspended ads on the service and the hashtag #DeleteFacebook has been trending online.
On Friday, electric carmaker Tesla Inc and its rocket company SpaceX's Facebook pages - each with more than 2.6 million followers - were deleted after Chief Executive Elon Musk promised to do so.
