Facebook tries to move on, but Cambridge Analytica won't go away

Zafar Bhat. Dated: 7/6/2018 12:05:01 PM

Zafar Bhat
Jammu, July 5
Categorically, Facebook India has admitted that it was misused for over two years to siphon data of nearly 5.62 lakh subscribers to Cambridge Analytica which is facing fire across the continents for clandestine data acquisition and unethical influencing.
However, Facebook really wants to move on from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that shook the company to its very foundations. But its wish is unlikely to be granted.
Whereas, Facebook launched an advertising blitz this week many countries designed to promote its efforts to clean up its platform following the massive data breach, which potentially affected millions of users around the world. Ironically, the campaign includes the very traditional formats of TV ads (it suffered a hiccup when it was forced to remove the term "fake news" from a voice-over in the Australian version), outdoor billboards and cinema advertising.
But shortly after the campaign launched - the Cambridge Analytica scandal resurfaced, and in a big way. Notably, Milner concedes Facebook will face stricter controls around privacy and the nature of content on its platform (its failure to stem hate speech, fake news and other forms of troubling content). But he argues, emphatically, that Facebook should not be regulated on competition grounds. Its success in advertising is a product of its innovation in a competitive market, he argues. “What’s there to regulate from a competition perspective?” he says. "Innovators are able to see something that the incumbents and the non-innovators have not seen, and because they are growing the market, they capture most of that benefit."
However, after the detection of the theft of data Facebook says it had sent notices asking GSR and Cambridge Analytica to delete all data which was surreptitiously collected. Facebook's says the two claimed they had done so. But a further probe by Facebook revealed that they had lied and were still in possession of the "loot". Following this Facebook banned Kogan and Cambridge Analytica from its platform.
Pertinently, Facebook says it has made changes to its privacy policy to make it much tougher for third-party apps to secure data from its site as they would have to take the sanction of Facebook each time. Whether the story is ending, or only just beginning, will be for regulators to decide.

 

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