The Facebook Scandal

One of the biggest social media networks, Facebook, has recently been under heavy criticism after they exposed data for over 50 million Facebook users to a company called Cambridge Analytica, who happen to be the company that worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This all began in 2014, when researcher at Cambridge University, Aleksandr Kogan, paid people to take a psychological quiz. However, this quiz collected data on your friends, and participants did not know how much data was collected. Through this, Kogan was able to collect data on about 50 million Facebook users, and he then gave this information to Cambridge Analytica. This was only recently figured out after a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower by the name of Christopher Wylie spoke out. Wylie also claimed that the data was used to sway people towards pro-Trump during the elections.

​    In addition to the data possibly being used to influence the 2016 presidential election, the data may have also been used to influence the Brexit vote. Facebook has been under heavy criticism, especially after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not respond for a while. He has recently come out with an interview saying sorry, however, after this, Facebook has fallen in stock price. Many people want Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress on how Facebook will protect the privacy and data of its users. Additionally, many celebrities have condemned Facebook and have even planned to delete their Facebook accounts. For example, Elon Musk has deleted Tesla’s and SpaceX’s Facebook accounts, one of the reasons being it’s hard to access Facebook while going to Mars. Brian Acton, Whatsapp co-founder, has also deleted his Facebook account, despite Whatsapp being a subsidiary of Facebook. Many have joined the #DeleteFacebook movement as well. While you are able to see your Facebook data that may have been exposed, and Facebook may try to contact those whose data got exposed, we will have to see in the upcoming weeks what impact this event has on the future of Facebook.

​What do you think? Are you ready to 🗑️Facebook? Leave your response in the comments ⬇️

Author:

Ritik Sinha