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Mark Zuckerberg has apologised for the incident, which saw 50 million users’ data breached
Facebook is trying to weather an ever-growing scandal around user data and privacy.
The California-based social network has come under fire following the revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political firm hired by Trump for the 2016 campaign, had improperly accessed information on 50 million users.
The news has wiped-off almost $50 billion from Facebook’s market value as investors fear the dealings with Cambridge Analytica could permanently damage the social network’s reputation, deter advertisers and invite tougher regulation.
Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first public appearance since the scandal broke, addressing the Cambridge Analytica revelations on CNN.
The 33-year-old billionaire told the news network that he would be happy to appear before US Congress “if it’s the right thing to do”.
“This was a major breach of trust, and I’m really sorry that this happened,” he added.
Facebook has said the data was harvested by Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology academic, who created an app on the platform that was downloaded by 270,000 people.
Mark Zuckerberg has apologised and said that they are going to make some changes, but frankly I don’t think those changes go far enough
It says he then violated its policies by passing the data to Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook requested the data of 50 million users be deleted from its database, but allegedly never followed-up to check its users’ information was safely disposed of.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m used to when people legally certify that they are going to do something, that they do it. But I think this was clearly a mistake in retrospect,” Mr Zuckerberg told CNN.
Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica who was suspended on Tuesday, said in a secretly recorded video that his company had played a decisive role in Trump’s election victory.
At the time, Facebook’s settings allowed app developers to access the personal data of not just the people who used their app, but of all of their friends as well.
Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook has already taken the most important steps to prevent such a situation from happening again.
He told CNN the site would be reviewing thousands of apps in an “intensive process”.
Facebook will ban developers who do not agree to an audit, and an app’s developer will no longer have access to data from people who have not used that app in three months.
He said he was confident Facebook could “get in front” of the problem.
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Facebook has found itself in the centre of a spiralling scandal around user data and privacy
“This isn’t rocket science. There’s a lot of hard work we have to do to make it harder for nation states like Russia to do election interference,” he said.
Research from Virtual Private Network has shown that 50 million Facebook accounts, such as those harvested in the Cambridge Analytica breach, would likely be worth $260 million – some £185 million, converted – to cybercriminals on the dark web.
Facebook login details can be bought for as little as $5.20 (£3.74) on dark web marketplaces such as Dream, Wall Street Market and Point, meaning a haul of 50 million could provide a considerable windfall for the seller.
The depth of personal data which can be pulled from a Facebook account explains why these carry more than double the price of other social media account logins.
Comparably, Instagram accounts go for as little as $1.29 (92p) to buyers on the dark web while Twitter details only fetch $1.69 (£1.20) per login.
Facebook holds a huge amount of data on its users.
Much of this information is volunteered by its users – profile picture, photo albums, statuses, messages, friends, videos, comments and events.
And other data is quietly collected by Facebook in the background, like web history, location information and even the time spent looking at each post in the News Feed.
If you remain logged into Facebook, the social network can see almost every other website you visit.
And even if you log-out of your Facebook account before you start surfing the world wide web, it still keeps a close eye.
Facebook is alerted every time you load a webpage with one of its Like or Share buttons embedded.
Any websites that use advertisements sourced from Atlas network will also track your movements.
Government Culture Secretary Matt Hancock this morning slammed the improvements announced by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, saying they do not go far enough.
“I saw overnight that Mark Zuckerberg has apologised and said that they are going to make some changes, but frankly I don’t think those changes go far enough,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“It shouldn’t be for a company to decide what is the appropriate balance between privacy and innovation and use of data, those rules should be set by society as a whole and so set by Parliament.
“That’s the approach that we are taking – the big tech companies need to abide by the law and we are strengthening the law.”