Finally, Mark Zuckerberg is about to address the Cambridge Analytica scandal
It’s not looking good for Facebook. With the data of 50 million of its users having allegedly been misused for political purposes, the company has a lot of questions to answer about its data protection efforts. Finally, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to publicly address the scandal.
We’ve had the news that the CEO is working “around the clock” to get to the bottom of what’s happened, and now Zuckerberg is reportedly preparing to speak about the alleged data misuse in the next 24 hours.
The move follows pressure for Zuckerberg to personally address what has happened, in addition to the corporate statements put out by the company as a whole. Apparently the CEO has so far been spending his time trying to fix the company’s internal problems with its product engineers before addressing them publicly.
Rebuilding trust will apparently be the main aim of his upcoming statement.
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But Zuckerberg’s headache is still far from over. Yesterday, the Chair of the UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins, called for him to appear directly in front of the committee to give evidence and to “stop hiding behind his Facebook page”. This is the same committee that conducted the government’s enquiry into fake news.
The company was given a deadline of March 26 to respond.
In addition, the US Federal Trade Commission is now reportedly investigating the company over the data misuse allegations.
With the social media company’s share price having fallen by around 10% since the scandal first broke, there’s a lot riding on Zuckerberg’s statement.
In particular, he needs to address how so many users’ data was apparently so easily misused, and what steps the company is going to take to prevent such misuse re-occurring in the future. With Facebook now holding an inordinate amount of personal data for its users after over a decade, it’s increasingly important for the company to make sure this data is secure.
What do you want to hear from Mark Zuckerberg? Let us know @TrustedRevews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
