Facebook Loses $37 Billion In One Day Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal

| |

Facebook Loses $37 Billion In One Day Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal

March 20. 2018

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

This is a follow up to the March 7, 2018 article "Blackberry Has Sued Facebook For Copyright Infringement." In the article I wrote about Facebook's chronic acts of theft and how it would financially and socially catch up with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. This week, Facebook's stock plunged like a toilet, costing the company $37 billion dollars.

Facebook social networking site

A scandal erupted on Saturday, regarding Facebook and a London based company called Cambridge Analytica. The company is accused of running questionnaire ads data mining 50 million Facebook users, to create political ads geared towards the public during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. One of Cambridge Analytica's former clients is Steven Bannon, the former campaign manager of President Donald Trump. The Brexit campaign, which also prevailed in the vote, is another client of Cambridge Analytica.

Item on Twitter from Guardian journalist, Carole Cadwalla, about Cambridge Analytica

Currently, no claim or proof has been presented that Cambridge Analytica broke the law in compiling data on Facebook users' preferences and political views. However, investigations are underway. President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, stated of the scandal, "Allegations of misuse of Facebook user data are an unacceptable violation of our citizens' privacy rights. The European Parliament will investigate fully, calling digital platforms to account."

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election that he won

Facebook is potentially facing massive government fines that could cost the company billions of dollars in Europe ($40,000 per user times 50 million people). Cambridge Analytica, for its part, is denying all wrongdoing. The Financial Times is reporting, "Cambridge Analytica says it does not hold or use Facebook data, and deleted the data it had when Facebook asked it to."

STORY SOURCE

Facebook data storm wipes nearly $37bn off market value

Social network faces regulatory backlash over information harvesting claims. Facebook has denied that the alleged use of its data by Cambridge Analytica constitutes a breach. Facebook’s shares fell the most in four years on Monday, wiping $36.7bn off the market value of the world’s largest social network as a backlash intensified over claims it had been used to harvest the data of millions of US voters.

EU lawmakers joined their UK and US counterparts by saying they would investigate reports that Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm employed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, mined the personal data of 50m users to create profiles to target them in elections. The reports in The New York Times and The Observer say the company broke Facebook’s rules by using data collected solely for research...

https://www.ft.com