Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sued by Washington, DC AG

Washington D.C., First Published Might 23, 2022, 7:50 PM IST

The Cambridge Analytica scandal returned to haunt Meta aka Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Washington District of Columbia Attorney Normal Karl A Racine asserting that his workplace is suing the social media behemoth's founder for his position in Facebook's misleading privacy practices and failure to protect millions of users' data.

The AG's case seeks to carry Zuckerberg accountable for his role in Fb violating the District's shopper safety legal guidelines by misrepresenting the safety of person information and their blatant disregard and misuse of sensitive, personal information belonging to District residents.

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In a series of Tweets, Racine mentioned: "Our investigation reveals in depth proof that Zuckerberg was personally concerned in failures that led to the Cambridge Analytica incident."

The AG's grievance notes that 'Facebook has grow to be a wildly successful and distinctive enterprise, deriving huge wealth from buying and monetizing the data of those billions of people main their lives in Facebook's digital ecosystem.'

The grievance further claims that 'Facebook -- at Zuckerberg's path -- shifted its enterprise mannequin on this approach as a result of it recognized that it could possibly be even more profitable if it could harness and promote the flexibility to dependably influence its users' behaviour to third parties. Facebook, due to this fact, encouraged (and, at instances, teamed up with) developers and researchers to collect and analyze Facebook user information so that it could higher discover ways to manipulate its personal customers’ moods and affect what they buy and even whether and how they vote.

Cambridge Analytica Case

In March 2018, whistleblower Christopher Wylie publicly revealed that a company known as Cambridge Analytica -- a London-based electioneering firm -- exfiltrated the non-public knowledge of more than 70 million Fb customers in the United States with the intention to influence the outcomes of the 2016 United States presidential election. 

This data trove included Fb users’ ages, interests, pages they have liked, teams they belong to, physical locations, political affiliation, spiritual affiliation, relationships, and photos, in addition to their full names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.

The non-public information of the greater than 70 million US Facebook customers that Cambridge Analytica used to govern the election accounted for greater than half the entire votes throughout the 2016 presidential elections, in an election that was effectively determined by just a few hundred thousand folks. 

Three years later, Fb and Zuckerberg publicly condemned Cambridge Analytica's knowledge assortment, which in keeping with AG Racine, solely demonstrates that what they are saying publicly is part of an intentional plan to mask the devastating penalties of their actions.

The Allegations

Focusing on the Cambridge Analytica case, the criticism accused Fb of actively encouraging companies like Cambridge Analytica to use the platform to influence and manipulate client behaviour.

'What's most troubling is that Facebook regarded into Cambridge Analytica and decided that it posed a threat to client knowledge however selected to bury those considerations somewhat than stop them, as that might have hurt Facebook’s (and Zuckerberg’s) bottom line. As a substitute of coming clean, Fb continued to help Cambridge Analytica win a United States presidential election,' the grievance mentioned.

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Last Updated May 23, 2022, 7:51 PM IST