The United States and Germany conducted opinion polls on Facebook this Sunday. The results showed that the majority of the public were losing trust in the company over the privacy issue. The firm ran advertisements in British and U.S. Newspapers saying sorry to the users.
More than half of Americans don’t trust that Facebook obeys privacy laws of the country. 60% of Germans fear that Facebook and other social networks are having a negative impact on democracy.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of the Facebook has apologized for “a breach of trust” in the advertisements placed in the papers including The Guardian in the UK and The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it,” said the advertisement, which appeared in plain text on a white background with a tiny Facebook logo.
The world’s largest social network is trying really hard to repair its reputation among its users, advertisers, lawmakers and investors. This follows accusations that the British consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to users’ data to build profiles of American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a meeting on NBC’s Meet the Press” on Sunday that Facebook had not been “fully forthcoming” over how Cambridge Analytica had used Facebook data. Warner repeated calls for Zuckerberg to testify in person before U.S. legislators, saying Facebook and other internet companies had been reluctant to confront “the dark underbelly of social media” and how it can be managed.
“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 U.S. television interviews.
Facebook shares lost 14% of their value last week, while the #DeleteFacebook gained traction online.
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Source: Reuters
