Zuckerberg Issues Full-Page Newspaper Apology to British Citizens

Zuckerberg apologised to British citizens for the Cambridge Analytica data breach on 25 March in British newspapers

Mark Zuckerberg issued full-page apologies to British citizens in newspapers on 25 March 2018, for the Cambridge Analytica data breach.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologised to British citizens on Sunday 25 March over a "breach of trust", taking out full page advertisements in British newspapers after a political consultancy got its hands on data on 50 million users.

“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it,” said the advert, signed by Facebook founder Zuckerberg.

One of the full-page apologies issued by Mark Zuckerberg in British newspapers on Sunday 25 March 2018.(Photo courtesy: Twitter/@BBC_Joe_Lynamm)

The world's largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States.

This follows allegations by a whistleblower that British consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed users' information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect US President Donald Trump in 2016.

The plain black text apology on a white background, with only a tiny Facebook logo, appeared in Sunday publications including The Observer – one of the newspapers whose reporting on the issue has sent Facebook's share price tumbling.

Zuckerberg said an app built by a university researcher "leaked Facebook data of millions of people in 2014".

"This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time," Zuckerberg said, reiterating an apology first made last week in US television interviews.

Cambridge Analytica says it initially believed the data had been obtained in line with data protection laws, and later deleted it at Facebook's request. The consultancy said it did not use the data in work it did for the 2016 US election.

On Friday night, investigators from Britain's data watchdog searched the London offices of Cambridge Analytica for several hours.

Zuckerberg, whose firm has lost more than $50 billion in market value since the allegations, said Facebook would give users more information and control about who can access their data.

"Thank you for believing in this community. I promise to do better for you," he wrote.

Advertisers Mozilla and German bank Commerzbank have suspended ads on the service and the hashtag #DeleteFacebook has been trending online.

On Friday, electric carmaker Tesla Incorporated and its rocket company SpaceX's Facebook pages – each with more than 2.6 million followers – were deleted after Chief Executive Elon Musk promised to do so.

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