Mark Zuckerberg has finally shown up his views post the Cambridge Analytica episode by way of a post on his personal Facebook profile as well as a couple of interviews. All of it can well be considered as a desperate damage control exercise on the part of the CEO. It can also be taken as an admission of sorts of the mess they have made and how they wish to prevent the same in future.
As is evident from what Zuckerberg said, the biggest mistake Facebook made was to accept Cambridge Analytica’s statement stating that they have deleted all illegally acquired data .
The social site had also asked both Cambridge Analytica as well as Kogan to furnish certificates of them having deleted all data, which they had done. However, as recent reports have surfaced, that might be far from reality.
Taking lessons from the goof up, Zuckerberg has stated they have will now make it mandatory for all app on its platform to furnish forensic audit reports to prove they aren’t misusing people’s data. All existing apps that deal with a lot of user info will also be subjected to a thorough investigation to ensure there isn’t a repeat of what Kogan’s app did.
In fact, from what Zuckerberg said, it is going to be a lot more stringent for apps seeking access to user info from here onwards. The chief executive also stated all bad players who are found to be not complying with the upcoming new data access policies will be banned from the site.
However, banning the bad actors after a mess has been done will have little effect unless they are made accountable to the law.
Zuckerberg, however, hasn’t spelled out clearly his views on that. Further, with the site has grown so big and having access to the sheer amount of people’s info, maybe they need to work under an international watchdog agency as well to prevent unauthorized and unethical usage of user’s data.
Meanwhile, among the other important point, Zuckerberg made in his Facebook post include easy access to a tool that will let users have a grasp of what apps are accessing their data. The tool is already present in the privacy settings section but is now being placed on top of the news feed to let users have a clear idea of the same.
On the whole, Facebook and its CEO Zuckerberg seems a lot wiser than they have ever been though unfortunately, it comes at the cost of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Let’s just hope any of that sort does not happen again as Zuckerberg has assured us it won’t. As for the #deletefacebook tag trending on social circles, the CEO of source said it isn’t a good thing.
