Zuckerberg breaks silence.

CEO says Facebook will audit thousands of apps after “breach of trust”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says the company will audit thousands of apps after the “breach of trust” created by Cambridge Analytica in his first remarks on the scandal.

Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said Facebook will audit thousands of apps in response to the “breach of trust” created by Cambridge Analytica, the chief executive’s first comments since a crisis erupted Friday over data siphoned by the political marketing firm used by the Trump campaign.

In a post on his personal Facebook page, the CEO said his company would investigate thousands of apps that used large amounts of data at the time. He said Facebook will give users easier access to tools to manage how their data is being used and shared and will further restrict developers’ access to data to prevent abuse.

“I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I’m responsible for what happens on our platform,” he said. “... While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn’t change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.”

Specifically he said the company will restrict the data that third-party developers can access to names, profile photos and email addresses, and will require developers to sign a contract before being allowed to ask Facebook users for rights to their posts. The company will post a new feature on the top of every Facebook user’s news feed with a list of the apps they have used and an easy way to revoke the app’s access.

Until now, Facebook’s top executives have been mum on Cambridge Analytica. Zuckerberg’s last Facebook post was from early March, when his sister photographed him baking cookies at home for the Jewish holiday Purim. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, posted on Saturday from her child’s school debate.

Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica on Friday for having obtained data on as many as 50 million users in an unauthorized way. This week, Facebook said it would audit the firm to determine whether it had deleted the data.

But the executives’ silence seemed to attract more attention to Facebook’s woes — especially after neither Zuckerberg nor Sandberg appeared at a company town hall meeting Tuesday. News organizations published articles asking when they would speak. A #DeleteFacebook campaign gained more momentum after Brian Acton, who made millions after Facebook purchased his app WhatsApp in 2014, said he was deleting the social network.

After the Tuesday meeting, employees posted on social media about how demoralized they felt. In an app for anonymously discussing the workplace, Blind, which requires a corporate email address to join, a Facebook employee posted, “Is this how the downfall of Myspace happened?”