Facebook stunned by heavy backlash
FTC to probe potential misuse of personal data
It’s officially open season on Facebook.
Angry users and money- losing investors. U. S. and European regulators. State attorneys general and lawmakers. They all say the social media giant needs to be held accountable for the misuse of personal information of asmany as 50 million Facebook users by data analysisfirm Cambridge Analytica, which said it helped Donald Trump get elected.
The chances of a sweeping regulatory backlash against Facebook in the USA and overseas have never been higher. But an even greater threat is that Facebook is losing in the only court that really matters: public opinion.
The Federal Trade Commission saidMonday that itwas investigating, and the attorneys general for 37 U. S. states and territories sought details on howFacebook monitored what app developers did with data collected on Facebook users and whether Facebook had sufficient safeguards for those data.
Talk of regulation spilled onto social media, where one prominent technology executive, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, also urged regulation, noting that alcohol and cigarettes are regulated, but not social media.
“Smoking, drinking too much, & spending too much time on social media: none of these things are good for you,” he wrote on Twitter.
Facebook is under fire after disclosures that Cambridge Analytica improperly received data on tens of millions of Facebook users who downloaded a quiz app and data on their friends who had not given permission to share information with the app.
The FTC said it’s probing whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree to protect users’ privacy. It requires Facebook to notify users and get explicit permission before sharing their information beyond the limits in their privacy settings. Each violation would cost it up to $ 40,000 a day.
“There’s some fairly strong commitments built into the settlement,” William Kovacic, a professor of law at George Washington University and a former chairman of the FTC.
On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa, requested that Mark Zuckerberg testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on consumer data privacy April 10. It’s the third committee, along with the Senate and House commerce committees, to demand the Facebook CEO appear.