As the adage goes, some people are born to fight battles until the very end. The case is pretty much similar to the infamous CEO of Facebook, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. Not too long ago, he found himself fighting it out tooth and nail on the battlefield against the charges filed by the Winklevoss brothers and his best friend on the ownership rights of Facebook, resulting in him conceding to share his company’s profits with Eduardo, his best friend.
A few years down the road, he finds himself unceremoniously chucked back into the spotlight, facing federal lawsuits and public discretion. All thanks to the massive data leak which happened in the year 2014!
Sources explain that the real culprit in the matter was none other than the renowned political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which heartily contributed during the 2016 elections as the engine behind Trump’s advertising and promotional campaigns.
The massive data leak by Cambridge occurred because the organization paid a handsome sum to a psychology professor, Aleksandr Kogan, who created a quiz application for Facebook which later became the source of harvesting information.
Sadly, more than 50 million individuals fell prey to the hands of technology inadvertently. In the aftermath of the event, a question still lingers on the lips of all and sundry: who is to be blamed?
People are now losing faith in sharing their personal information or accessing applications through Facebook’s social media platform any longer. In the wake of the earth-shattering scandal, only 41% of Americans still trust Facebook to conform to laws that safeguard their personal information.
Surprisingly, even the remarkable entrepreneur Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX has taken the bold step of removing his business bidding from the platform. His most recent tweet shows that he has deleted all his business pages from the platform, which could be a massive blow to the platform.
The platform which was once blatantly trusted by diverse audiences around the world, has its credibility now hanging loose from a frayed thread.
Mark stands firm with the statement that despite getting the British political consultancy firm, Cambridge Analytica, to certify that they had removed the information in the year 2015. The organization still managed a breach of trust misconduct with the latest updates rolling in. According to mammoth sources, such as the Guardian, Washington Post & NYTimes, a copy of the data was secured by Cambridge Analytica until the Presidential elections of 2016.
In a Statement Issued By Mark
“This was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it.”
As a result, the British members of the Parliament are fueled up, and find it a reasonable enough pretext to invite Mark on a personal visit to the UK. To hear his side of why he provided misleading information on the international platforms. Mark wishes nothing but to hold back on his claims and is more than willing to answer all accusations so that the burgeoning controversy vilifying his name can be cleared.
The cases against the CEO were filed by the British government on the 20th March of 2018, which sent the platform’s integrity plummeting steeply. Predictions are also running berserk that this is just the beginning of an erupting volcano, as Facebook will once again face a series of file suits.
Seems Like Mark Zuckerberg is in the Line of Fire, Yet Again!
Cambridge Analytica is believed to be the mastermind behind the bewildering success of Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections. It is one of the many reasons why this data breach has become all that anybody can talk about since it could have caused a ripple that could storm over the entire country in its waves. Audiences are now wondering whether their leaked information could have paved the way for the good-for-nothing President Trump of the United States!
With the diabolical news creating embarrassing debacles among the general population. British officers conducted a raid at Cambridge Analytica’s London office, their headquarters. In a statement issued on Friday, last week,
“We are pleased with the decision of the Judge, and the warrant is now being executed. This is just one part of a larger investigation into the use of personal data and analytics for political purposes. As you will expect, we will now need to collect, assess, and consider the evidence before coming to any conclusions.”
In their defense, the current acting CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Tayler explains to the authorities that they are not to be blamed as they have done nothing wrong. In fact, he goes so far as to claim,
“We did not use any GSR data in the work we did in the 2016 US presidential election. We thought that the data had been obtained in line with Facebook’s terms of service and data protection laws.”
According to Alexander, Christopher Wylie, the man who released the information to the digital media was a freelance contracted employee who had worked with the firm for a short period of time. He was not drilled in the work practices deployed at the organization and was restrained because he was stealing information from the company to initiate his own firm.
Facebook completely denies Alexander’s statement by putting forward a mandated rule which was passed in 2014, stating that no third party app using the Facebook platform is allowed to harvest any personal information from customers.
However, the question still makes us ponder – who is to be blamed? Is the embattled CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg guilty of having a loophole in the security implemented within his platform, which led to this massive breach of information? Or does the fault lie with Cambridge Analytica firm for beholding information which was meant to be dissolved in mutual agreement with Facebook?
One way or another, Facebook lost its credibility among audiences worldwide, a blow for which Mark Zuckerberg had personally apologized.
Don’t worry Mark, the North remembers!
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