(22 Mar 2018) On March 20th 2018 the whistleblower at the center of allegations that a U.K.-based company improperly used the personal data of some 50 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election expressed regret for having taken part in the project.
Chris Wylie told a packed audience at the Frontline Club, a media organization in London, that he was sorry he had worked for Cambridge Analytica.
When asked if he would compare himself to other whistleblowers, such as Daniel Ellsberg or Edward Snowden, Wylie demurred, saying his decision to come forward was more about contrition.
He said "the very first thing that I have to do is tell people about it and the next step for me is to figure out what I can do to make good."'
Wylie said he found Facebook's reaction to the revelations bizarre.
He told the audience in London that before the story broke, Facebook had agreed to work with him to improve its platform.
But he said he was blindsided on Friday with a news release that identified him as a suspect in the case.
Cambridge has denied wrongdoing, and Trump's campaign has said it didn't use Cambridge's data.
Britain's information commissioner said she was using all her legal powers to investigate the social-media giant and Cambridge Analytica.
Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is pursuing a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's servers.
She has also asked Facebook to cease its own audit of Cambridge Analytica's data use.
The chairman of the U.K. parliamentary media committee, Damian Collins, said on Tuesday his group has repeatedly asked Facebook how it uses data.
The committee summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify.
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Breaking five days of silence, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted mistakes and outlined steps to protect user data in light of a privacy scandal involving a Trump-connected data-mining firm.
Zuckerberg said March 21st that Facebook has a "responsibility" to protect its users' data and if it fails, "we don't deserve to serve you."
But Zuckerberg stopped short of apologising.
And he wrote "what happened" instead of "what we did," leaving Facebook one step removed from responsibility.
Richard Levick, chairman of the crisis-management firm Levick, gave Zuckerberg's response a "B-" grade, in part because of how late it came.
Zuckerberg and Facebook's No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg, had been quiet since news March 16th that Cambridge Analytica may have used data improperly obtained from roughly 50 million Facebook users to try to sway elections. Cambridge's clients included Donald Trump's general-election campaign.
Facebook shares have dropped some eight percent, lopping about 46 billion US dollars off the company's market value, since the revelations were first published.
Even before the scandal broke, Facebook has already taken the most important steps to prevent a recurrence, Zuckerberg said. For example, in 2014, it reduced access outside apps had to user data. However, some of the measures didn't take effect until a year later, allowing Cambridge to access the data in the intervening months.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that there is more to do.
In a Facebook post on March 21st, Zuckerberg said it will ban developers who do not agree to an audit. An app's developer will no longer have access to data from people who haven't used that app in three months. Data will also be generally limited to user names, profile photos and email, unless the developer signs a contract with Facebook and gets user approval.
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One analyst said he didn't hear a plan from Zukerberg.
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