Facebook is facing another flak from law makers of the United States and the United Kingdom. The criticism is on how the social media company protects user data, after lawmakers demanded explanation on how a data firm, which has political links (President Trump’s 2016 campaign) was able to fetch private information from a vast database of 50 million Facebook profiles.
The criticism was so severe, that Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has pressed for the presence of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Chief, to appear before the panel and give a proper explanation on how the social network platform had misused data to target political advertising.
A detailed scrutiny was called for after sources found that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm had used Facebook data to develop methods to identify personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. Cambridge Analytica is a firm that was founded by wealthy Republican Donors Robert Mercer and Stephen K Bannon.
The firm had used psychographic modeling for the Trump Campaign in the year 2016, but many have questioned the effectiveness of techniques.
Facebook had not revealed to the users that their data has been harvested. This act of non-disclosure is a violation of laws in Britain and in many American states.
Another lawyer from Britain, Damian Collins also insisted to call Mark Zuckerberg or any other leadership to testify. The social network giant has sent executives to answer all questions at the hearing.
