The Future of Facebook and Private Information Security

The+Future+of+Facebook+and+Private+Information+Security

Kim Houchin, Editor in Chief

The creator of one of the largest social media networks is now under the microscope of the government.

The current Facebook privacy scandal is a recipe for disaster for the billions of people associated with the site.

Back in 2015, the Cambridge Analytica scandal with Ted Cruz was revealed. It was reported by The Guardian that Cambridge Analytica was helping Cruz use psychological data based on research of millions of Facebook accounts. This was planned to help him gain an advantage over his political rivals, including Donald Trump.

Later in 2016, Trump’s campaign began investing heavily into advertising within Facebook. Similar to Cruz, the investment had involved Cambridge Analytica. They were ultimately the ones responsible for the “Defeat Crooked Hillary” video campaign.

In the year 2017, The Guardian and The New York Times wrote an expose, claiming that 50 million Facebook profiles were harvested for Cambridge Analytica. This number was later revised to be 87 million accounts. This gave rise to the current allegations brought against Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook.

Later on March 20, 2018, the Federal Trade Commission opened their investigation on the social network and whether they had violated a settlement reached with the government in 2011 pertaining to privacy protection issues. Lawmakers were urging Zuckerberg to testify before Congress.

It was March 21, 2018 when Zuckerberg officially broke his silence on the matter. “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Zuckerberg, in a Facebook post pertaining to the scandal.

April 10, 2018 was the day that Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress. Around 2:40 p.m., Zuckerberg began testifying to half of the United States’ senators and on a livestream to the entire world.

The purpose of this questioning is to see if the senators in Congress will want to pass a bill regulating Facebook and its content.

Some of the main things that were focused on during the questioning were the terms and conditions of Facebook, policing content and speech on the platform, privacy hacking and hate speech on the social network.

However, many of the questions asked by the senators went unanswered. Zuckerberg did not have answers for the more hot button issues, stating that he would be working with his team in order to correctly answer the questions.

Zuckerberg is scheduled to have another questioning on April 11. There will be a follow-up article along with that questioning.