Facebook data beach: Zuckerberg to meet European Parliament next week

Social media networking site Facebook confirms meeting with European parliament to discuss the growing online data-privacy concerns.

As reported by the New York Times, the meeting is scheduled to take place sometime next week where Facebook founder-CEO Mark Zuckerberg will discuss the issue of the data breach by data analytics company Cambridge Analytica.

It is touted be a closed-door meeting to be attended by leaders of the various political groups.

Leaders of the European Parliament's various blocs and the head of the body's civil liberties committee which is holding hearings on the ongoing Facebook data breach case will be the part of the meeting.

Further, Zuckerberg is scheduled to have lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss a range of issues.

Six takeaways from Mark Zuckerberg's time in the Senate spotlight

In some ways, Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg might be relieved. He prepared for harder questions than he got during his first testimony before US lawmakers.

No senator asked him, for example, about whether he should resign from Facebook - a question Zuckerberg would have answered by saying he has solved big problems before, according to a snapshot of his notes from the Associated Press. Or about the fact that malicious actors may have abused Facebook’s search feature to scrape data on a majority of its 2 billion users, which, he would have explained, the company has resolved so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

The executive had to clear up a few misconceptions about his product in exchanges with senators that came with a touch of irony, considering how misinformation is known to spread on his social network. No, Zuckerberg said, Facebook doesn’t sell data to advertisers or anyone else. (Instead, it has an ad-targeting system that allows advertisers to reach users based on their interests and activity without ever seeing their names.) Facebook also isn’t listening to people’s conversations via their phones’ microphones, or trying to silence conservative voices, he said.

But there were some hard-hitting questions. And in five hours of testimony before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees, the 33-year-old ducked some, skirted around others, but answered most of them. Here are the top takeaways:

'Who is going to protect us from Facebook?': US lawmakers ask Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg was confronted Wednesday by lawmakers scoffing at his apologies over lapses in protecting user privacy and pledges to do better, with one member asking, “Who’s going to protect us from Facebook?”

The question by Representative Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, was echoed by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from both parties as the founder of Facebook Inc. was questioned on Capitol Hill for a second consecutive day.

Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, the House panel’s Republican chairman, said Zuckerberg needed to account for “alarming reports of breaches of trust between your company -- one of the biggest and most powerful in the world -- and its users.”

While the criticism was bipartisan, members of the Democratic minority were more assertive in saying expanded government regulation is the answer.

Need to focus on Facebook privacy, says Senator before Zuckerberg hearings

A Congressional critic of Facebook Inc. said lawmakers may need to consider regulating the social media giant, ahead of two days of high-profile congressional testimony by founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, Christopher Wylie, the former employee of Cambridge Analytica who blew the whistle on a data-privacy scandal involving the analytics firm’s role in the 2016 presidential election, said some of the information improperly harvested from tens of millions of Facebook users might be stored in Russia.

Zuckerberg will testify Tuesday and Wednesday before congressional panels investigating the mishandling of its data and other revelations about the social-media giant. On Friday, as the company worked to manage the crisis, Zuckerberg said he supports proposed legislation that would require disclosure of who’s paying for political ads on social media networks.

After Cambridge Analytica row, Facebook to now verify advertiser's identity

Facebook will not allow political ads on its platform until the advertiser's identity is verified and the entity paying for the message is mentioned, the social media giant has announced, in a bid to improve its transparency and accountability around political campaigns.

The social networking platform, under fire over allegations that it was being used for influencing polls, said those who want to buy political or issue ads will have to reveal their identities and verify where they are.

Facebook announced the move as its CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to appear before Congress next week to answer questions about the harvesting of personal data on 87 million users by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy working for President Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

"Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads electoral or issue-based until they are authorised, Facebook said, announcing plans to make advertisements on its platform more transparent.

Guess who quit Facebook now? Playboy deactivates after data breach scandal

Playboy announced on Wednesday it was suspending its activities on Facebook to avoid being "complicit" in a wide-ranging scandal over misuse of private data.

The adult entertainment group said it had long faced difficulties in dealing with Facebook due to "strict content and policy guidelines" and that the revelations over hijacking of personal data by a political consulting firm was the final straw.

Playboy said it was deactivating all the Facebook accounts managed by the company.

"The recent news about Facebook's alleged mismanagement of users' data has solidified our decision to suspend our activity on the platform at this time," said a statement from Playboy.

"There are more than 25 million fans who engage with Playboy via our various Facebook pages, and we do not want to be complicit in exposing them to the reported practices."

The statement added: "Playboy has always stood for personal freedom and the celebration of sex. Today we take another step in that ongoing fight."

Cambridge Analytica data breach: FB reviews political strategist's role

Facebook said on Sunday it was conducting a “comprehensive internal and external review” to determine if the personal data of 50 million users that was reported to be misused by a political consultant still existed.
The company said in a statement that it was trying to determine the accuracy of allegations that a researcher gave the firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately obtained Facebook user data starting in 2014.
In the statement from Paul Grewal, a Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, the company said it was committed to “vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information.”