#DeleteFacebook – What Happened, When, Where And How

Amid the ongoing scandal regarding Facebook’s part in the US 2016 elections, the social media giant has found itself in the middle of yet another controversy. A New York Times report brought to light how a voter profiling company, Cambridge Analytica, harvested more than 50 million Facebook profiles of American voters without their permission. This report resulted in not just harsh criticism from lawmakers in the United States and Britain, but users as well, sparking the #DeleteFacebook movement.

According to the report, Cambridge Analytica secured a $15 million investment to develop a tool that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. Although these profiles were obtained without the consent of the users, the millions of Facebook profiles do not constitute a data breach as nobody hacked into Facebook. The data, surprisingly, was obtained legally because the business model of Facebook is predicated on mining the personal details of its two billion users.

A former employee at Cambridge Analytica, Christopher Wylie, who helped the company obtain user data said the company was built on harvesting user data. “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons,” he added. The data allowed Cambridge Analytica to exploit the social media activity of the American electorate and help the Trump campaign target advertisements.

Wylie reached out to Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian-American who developed a personality prediction app called “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan told Facebook that he was collecting the data for academic purposes. It should be noted that Facebook has the right to collect user information for research and other purposes as stated in their terms and conditions. Kogan’s app compiled personal information from people based on what they liked on Facebook. As per a report by The Guardian, Kogan, through his company Global Science Research, paid 270,000 people to download the app and take a personality test. Using the test, Cambridge Analytica was able to compile information not only from the users who took the test but from their friend’s profiles as well.

The problem lies in the fact that Facebook was aware that Cambridge Analytica had user data and they asked the company to delete it. While Cambridge Analytica and Kogan seemed to comply, the social networking company never followed up or confirmed the deletion of the data. Until last week, Facebook also allowed the voter profiling company to operate on its site.

The fallout from the scandal resulted in users walking away from the social networking site. Various celebrities also took to Twitter to express their views, including Jim Carrey, who tweeted Zuckerberg’s quote from 2004.

In addition to Cambridge Analytica’s involvement with the US 2016 election, the company has also been a part of the Brexit referendum and US Senator Ted Cruz’s primary run in 2016.

Finally, following days of silence, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg responded to the criticism via a Facebook post. Apologizing for the mistake, Zuckerberg said, “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”

Whistleblower Wylie was suspended from Facebook and Instagram following the controversy.

Facebook along with Cambridge Analytica is facing several lawsuits in Britain and United States of America. The Attorney General of Massachusetts, Maura Healey’s office will also be opening an investigation into the matter. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Representative Adam Schiff of California, the Congressional Democrats leading inquiries into Russian interference in the 2016 election have also called for investigations of the Facebook data leak.