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“I'm not sure we shouldn't be regulated. I think the question is more, ‘What is the right regulation?’ rather than yes or no,” Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Laurie Segall, on 21 March.
In addition to the interview with CNN, Zuckerberg also spoke to The New York Times, apart from issuing a statement on Facebook explaining what the social media giant would do to check potential data breaches.
In light of the revelation that data brokerage firm Cambridge Analytica had unethically received and retained the information of nearly 50 million Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg answered a number of important questions about the social media giant’s handle on data privacy, its efforts towards clamping down on fake news, and its handle on Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential elections.
Right off the bat, Zuckerberg begins by issuing an apology for the privacy breach committed by Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica, adding that the company was implementing measures to restrict the data that developers could access.
Zuckerberg added that Facebook will also build a tool which tells people if their data and their information was impacted by the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
“If we see apps that are doing sketchy things, we’re definitely going to tell people. That’s definitely something we did wrong and I hope we do right going forward,” Zuckerberg added, stating that they would ensure they monitored app activity and data access more strictly.
Answering CNN’s questions about whether he believed the social network should be regulated, Zuckerberg had this to say:
In an interview with CNN’s Laurie Segall, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook did not have a handle on the spread of fake news, and the influences of Russian bot and troll accounts in the 2016 US Presidential elections, adding that they did learn from their mistakes and have created bots to detect fake accounts and bot accounts being used to spread divisive propaganda and identify clear voter and other targets by spreading polarising messages.
In response to a question about what Facebook planned on doing in response to the revelation that Cambridge Analytica had retained information from, Zuckerberg said:
In the interview with The New York Times Zuckerberg adds, “we’re going to go do a full forensic audit, and make sure we have the capacity to do that, to make sure that other developers aren’t doing what Kogan did here.”
Speaking to CNN, Zuckerberg says that he’s certain that the same methods used to interfere with the 2016 US Presidential elections were being modified and used to target other elections.
In the interview with The New York Times, Zuckerberg adds that the methods used by Russian bot accounts in the 2016 US Presidential elections were thwarted in a more efficient way during the french elections that took place shortly after.
With regards to concerns of Indian elections being influenced by bot and troll accounts, Zuckerberg had this to say:
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica expose, millions of users began a #DeleteFacebook campaign, pushing for people to purge all of their data from the social media giant, and delete their accounts. Zuckerberg had this to say, in response to whether he was concerned about the campaign.
Facebook’s stock prices dropped by more than 7 percent following the revelation that Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump’s election campaign, had unethically accessed and retained the data of nearly 50 million Facebook users.
Whether Facebook can control the damage from this revelation, remains to be seen.
(With inputs from The New York Times and CNN)
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