Facebook continues to suffer the backlash of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The case, born from an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian and the US newspaper New York Times got into trouble Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the popular social network.
The British Parliamentary Committee on Culture, Media and Digital has in fact asked the CEO of Facebook to appear at ahearing to account for the alleged abuse of millions of users' data. This was announced by the chairman of the commission, Damian Collins, quoting a letter he wrote to the patron of the US web giant accusing the company's management of having "misled" the body in previous hearings. Not only that, the British authorities have already asked a search warrant from Cambridge Analytica, accusing her of not cooperating.
But Great Britain is not the only one who wants to see clearly. The European Commission will also ask Facebook for clarification. This was decided after a meeting of Member States' data protection authorities. The president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani announced that the deputies will conduct an investigation into the "unacceptable violation of the rights to data privacy".
We've invited Mark Zuckerberg to the European Parliament. Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of 500 million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy.
- Antonio Tajani (@EP_President) 20 March 2018
On the same line the White House: 'US President Donald Trump - says the deputy spokesman for the White House, Raj Shah - believes that the privacy rights of Americans should be protected".
The harsh reaction to the scandal caused a new collapse of the stock which, less than an hour after the opening of the Nasdaq, dropped 5,6 percent at $162,9. Today's drop follows the plunge recorded in yesterday's session, March 19, when Facebook shares plunged by 6,8%, sending about 36 billion dollars up in smoke. Not only that, the decline of the Menlo Park group has also ballasted Twitter which travels in heavy decline, marking a red above 9%. Down as well Snapchat (-3,6%).
We recall that the scandal concerns the alleged woman hacking of Facebook accounts by Cambridge Analytica to influence the 2016 US election campaign and the Brexit referendum. According to what was reported by the two newspapers that conducted the investigation, Zuckerberg & Co. would have been aware of the illegal use of user data since 2015, and would have worked to request its cancellation, without however informing anyone of the violation.
Because of what happened, this morning "the first head fell". The security officer has resigned of information, Alex Stamos, who spoke of "internal disagreements" on how to deal with the matter and on how Facebook's top management handled the issue of fake news that is spread through the platform.
