How Facebook Betrayed Its User's Privacy & Mark Zuckerberg Was Forced To Say Sorry To The World

At a US Senate hearing on data privacy today, Mark Zuckerberg was finally made to answer for Facebook¡¯s many failings these past few months, regarding Cambridge Analytica and how Facebook handles user data.

But how is it that the biggest social media platform in the world went so far astray? Well, it all happened over a series of missteps over a long period of time.

Images courtesy: Reuters

1) In 2007 the Facebook Platform was launched, for apps and services built by third-party developers. It allowed developers access to user data, when people downloaded their app and authorized access.

2) In 2013 Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz app called ¡®This is Your Digital Life¡¯ that was eventually installed by about 270,000 people. The app had access to those people¡¯s data, as well as a list of who their friends on Facebook were. But because of how the platform worked at the time, Kogan also had access to their friends¡¯ data, totaling around 87 million people, a lot of whom were Indian users.

3) In 2014, Cambridge Analytica was paid to use this data by the Ted Cruz campaign to make psychological profiles for US voters in order to influence them. Eventually, when Cruz dropped out of the running, their services were employed by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. (Despite this fact, Ted Cruz was on the panel interrogating Zuckerberg today.)

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4) That year, Facebook also tightened its privacy policies. After that, apps had to get approval from Facebook when requesting sensitive data. Furthermore, if you¡¯re the one that installed the app , it wouldn¡¯t be allowed to request your Facebook friend¡¯s data unless they had also authorized the same one.

5) In 2015, The Guardian exposed that Kogan had shared the data he gathered with Cambridge Analytica. Seeing it as a breach of their policies, Facebook banned Kogan¡¯s app from the platform and demanded he and the analytics firm delete the data they had. According to Zuckerberg, CA here ¡°certified¡± that they had deleted all the improperly acquired data.

6) Later in March 2018, it emerged that Cambridge Analytica had not in fact deleted the data. If whistleblower Christopher Wylie¡¯s accounts from when he left CA are to be believed, Facebook asked him to delete any user data he still had on his home systems, but never followed up with checks, Likely that¡¯s also what happened with the firm.

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7) Not just creating psychological profiles of Americans either, it emerged that Cambridge Analytica had a classification system in place, allowing in to emotionally manipulate voters. According to its own claims, Cambridge Analytica helped Donald Trump¡¯s digital campaign propel him all the way into the Oval Office.

8) Facebook¡¯s stock saw an immediate drop at the time, and Zuckerberg earned himself investigation and summons on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a class-action lawsuit. Eventually, Mark Zuckerberg did apologise for the fiasco, and has been saying sorry ever since by saying stuff like, ¡°We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can¡¯t then we don¡¯t deserve to serve you.¡±

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10) Zuckerberg then, today, appeared for his first senate hearing on the matter, with another still to commence later. In it, he restated his apology, and tried to stress Facebook¡¯s attempts to remedy the situation and its commitment to data privacy. However, he failed to strongly affirm his commitment to tighter regulations. Now, all that¡¯s left is to see if the UK investigation decides to take stronger action against Facebook. Some of the senators even proposed a law that could help tighten data privacy regulations.