Mark Zuckerberg admits ‘mistakes’ over Facebook data scandal

Mark Zuckerberg apologises and says if Facebook “can’t protect people’s data we don’t deserve to do what we are doing’’.

Mark Zuckerberg, has admitted Facebook made mistakes over Cambridge Analytica. Picture: Getty Images.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the social media giant will be clamping down on “rogue” apps that have been selling personal information of Facebook users to third party analytics firms.

“If we can’t protect people’s data we don’t deserve to do what we are doing,” he told CNN in an interview this afternoon.

“Our responsibility is to make sure that developers like (Alexander Kogan) not getting the kind of access they can get.”

Speaking to CNN five days after the scandal hit the headlines, Mr Zuckerberg said that Facebook will notify the 50 million users whose data was sold to analytics company Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the Cambridge Analytica scandal: "This was a major breach of trust, and I'm really sorry that this happened" https://t.co/hpduqQB2r0 pic.twitter.com/gIhL00FlMY

— CNN (@CNN) March 22, 2018

“We need to tell everyone whose data has been affected by a rogue app,” he said.

“We need to make sure there are no Cambridge Analyticas out there, we will investigate every app and if we detect anything we will do a forensic audit.”

Facebook was aware of the Cambridge Analytica issue in 2015 and Mr Zuckerberg said that the company should have been more upfront with users.

“Going forward when we will identify apps that do sketchy things we will tell people, I regret we didn’t do that at the time.”

Mr Zuckerberg has been attacked for remaining silent this week as a firestorm of criticism from politicians, regulators and others engulfed the company he co-founded.

But today Mr Zuckerberg emerged to outline steps to protect user data after revelations that Cambridge Analytica allegedly used data improperly obtained from roughly 50 million Facebook users to try to sway the 2016 US election. Using his Facebook page for his mea culpa, Mr Zuckerberg posted that his company has a “responsibility” to protect its users’ data, and “if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”

He admitted: “We made mistakes .. and need to step up.”

Outlining the steps Facebook will take to ensure members’ privacy, Mr Zuckerberg said the firm would investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before Facebook tightened up its platform to reduce data access in 2014, and would conduct an audit of any app with suspicious activity.

“And if we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps,” he wrote.

The company would also increase restrictions on developers’ data and require developers to sign a contract in order to ask members for access to their posts or other private data.

Developers’ access to data would be removed if a member hadn’t used the app in three months.

Mr Zuckerberg added that a tool to deny apps’ permissions to data, which already exists, would be added to the News Feed for greater visibility.

The comments come after significant damage has already been done in a crisis that has prompted calls for him to testify before legislators in the US and Europe, carved tens of billions of dollars off Facebook’s value, and raised new questions about the leadership of one of the world’s most powerful technology companies.

“Facebook is exhibiting signs of systemic mismanagement, which is a new concern we had not contemplated until recently,” Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said in a note Wednesday morning. Mr. Wieser has a “sell” rating on the stock.

Facebook says Mr. Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg have focused on addressing the concerns behind the scenes. “Mark, Sheryl and their teams are working around the clock to get all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward, because they understand the seriousness of this issue,” a Facebook spokesman said.

The current crisis began with its statement Friday that it was looking into reports that data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked with the Trump campaign in 2016, improperly accessed and retained user data. That episode involved information on potentially tens of millions of Facebook users.

"We have a basic responsibility to protect people's data and if we can't do that then we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people," says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg https://t.co/kmMO3jnLxl pic.twitter.com/nqv0QxLXhg

— CNN (@CNN) March 22, 2018

The Federal Trade Commission is now investigating whether Facebook’s user-data practices violated terms of a 2011 settlement. Users have aired their anger over social media, using the hashtag #deletefacebook. Late Tuesday, Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, a messaging app that Facebook bought for $22 billion in 2014, appeared to join them, with a message on his Twitter account saying “It is time. #deletefacebook.” Mr Acton couldn’t be reached for comment.

“The entire company is outraged we were deceived,” the Facebook spokesman said, saying the company would do “whatever steps are required” to protect user information.

The scrutiny has weighed on Facebook staff, with many questioning why Mr Zuckerberg hasn’t been publicly discussing the company’s role, according to current and former employees. At a question-and-answer session for employees Tuesday about the episode, Facebook lawyer Paul Grewal presided. Mr Zuckerberg and Ms Sandberg weren’t in the room.

Over the weekend and early this week, senior Facebook officials spent much of the time trying to nail down the facts of what happened with Cambridge Analytica, and contemplating whether and how Mr Zuckerberg should respond, a person familiar with the matter said.

Facebook has been under fire for more than a year on a range of issues, but criticism intensified last month when special counsel Robert Mueller secured indictments against a group of Russians for manipulating Facebook and other social platforms to sow discord.

In the month since, Mr. Zuckerberg posted publicly on his Facebook page — typically his main venue for disseminating his views — only twice: once with photos of his family celebrating Chinese New Year, the other of them celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Publicly, Facebook has left it to other senior executives to make its case, often using posts on rival Twitter Inc. -- a strategy that has sometimes backfired.

Executives responded to the current uproar over the weekend by arguing that what happened didn’t constitute a data breach — prompting users, privacy advocates and others to say it was missing the point.

Last month, Facebook’s head of advertising, Rob Goldman, drew fire when he defended Facebook’s handling of the Russia crisis and argued the Russians bought ads to exploit social divisions, not primarily to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election — a point that some in Washington interpreted as contradicting the indictment.

Internally, Mr Zuckerberg has appeared to take the criticism in stride. During an employee question-and-answer session last month, Mr Zuckerberg said Mr Goldman’s comments didn’t reflect the company’s thinking, people familiar with his comments said, but he still backed Facebook’s strategy of having a select group of senior executives engage directly with critics, academics and journalists on Twitter and be more transparent about the company’s process and thinking.

With Deepa Seetharaman from The Wall St Journal