Zuckerberg shows no real desire to bring Facebook to heel

Before trying to save the world and move into politics, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a long way to go in getting his house in order.

Zuckerberg is the chairman, chief executive and controlling shareholder of the company he founded in 2004.

Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Facebook has played fast and loose with people’s data since he founded the social network in dorm room H33 at Harvard University’s Kirkland House as a 19-year-old.

When asked by a college friend why students willingly handed over email addresses and pictures to him, Zuckerberg responded: “I don’t know why. They ‘trust me’. Dumb f..ks.”

While many of Facebook’s 2.1 billion users have been cavalier with their personal information, revelations of Cambridge Analytica’s apparent misuse of personal data on 3.1 per cent of Facebook’s Australian users has given consumers and regulators a stunning wake-up call.

On a call with media outlets including The Australian yesterday morning, Zuckerberg struck a contrite tone.

The longer the call went on, however, the more arrogant and presumptuous Zuckerberg appeared. By the end, it was difficult to escape the feeling Facebook’s history of evasive and slippery behaviour was making a bad problem much worse.

New information that Cambridge Analytica was able to improperly use data on 87 million Facebook users globally, up from 50 million, shows that Facebook has been unforgivably lax about how third parties harvest and exploit personal data submitted to the platform.

Another disclosure in which Facebook admitted it scans users’ private messages shows that the company routinely pretends it knows less than it does.

Every Australian citizen with a presence on social media must be circumspect about sharing personal information and aware of the consequences of being the product from which Facebook handsomely profits.

Digital evangelists have cheerfully proclaimed the virtues of the open web and regulators have been historically timid about tackling the tech giants.

But this is a moment for the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and the privacy commissioner to get to grips with the Wild West of personal data abuse.

It’s also high time that Facebook appointed an independent chairman to ensure it protects an individual’s right to privacy.