Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has posted a statement on Facebook responding to the ongoing concern that Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign data firm, used 50 million Facebook users' data that had been harvested without their permission.
From Zuckerberg's statement:
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. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it.
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In 2013, a Cambridge University researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz app. It was installed by around 300,000 people who shared their data as well as some of their friends' data. Given the way our platform worked at the time this meant Kogan was able to access tens of millions of their friends' data.
In 2014, to prevent abusive apps, we announced that we were changing the entire platform to dramatically limit the data apps could access. Most importantly, apps like Kogan's could no longer ask for data about a person's friends unless their friends had also authorized the app. We also required developers to get approval from us before they could request any sensitive data from people. These actions would prevent any app like Kogan's from being able to access so much data today.
In 2015, we learned from journalists at The Guardian that Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica ... [W]e immediately banned Kogan's app from our platform, and demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica formally certify that they had deleted all improperly acquired data. They provided these certifications.
Last week, we learned from The Guardian, The New York Times and Channel 4 that Cambridge Analytica may not have deleted the data as they had certified.
Zuckerberg goes on to say Facebook will make more changes which will include limiting the data apps can access and making it easier for users to find their privacy settings and implement restrictions.
Read the full post.
CNN says it will air an interview with Zuckerberg Wednesday evening.
Zuckerberg will sit down with CNN's Laurie Segall for an interview that will air on "Anderson Cooper 360" at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg shared Zuckerberg statement on her Facebook page and added her own remarks.
Mark Zuckerberg to face questions in CNN interview exclusive (CNN)