San Francisco: With Facebook getting mired in its biggest-ever controversy following a massive data breach, everyone is asking one question: Where is its CEO Mark Zuckerberg?
Not only Zuckerberg has remained quiet so far, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg who has been the face of the company’s PR strategy is yet to speak on the data scandal.
According to a report in ReCode on Wednesday, Zuckerberg is slated to address a weekly Q&A session with employees on Friday and he may speak before that meeting.
Normally, Zuckerberg or Sandberg come out with long blog posts whenever Facebook gets tangled in controversies but the silence this time is deafening.
Facebook is facing the heat after Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and using the data to help politicians, including US President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.
The company received the user data from a Facebook app years ago that purported to be a psychological research tool, however, the firm was not authorised to have that information.
European Union (EU) and British lawmakers have demanded that social media giant Facebook should clarify data breach following revelations that personal data was massively misused for political purposes.
British lawmakers have also summoned Zuckerberg to give oral evidence after “misleading to the Committee” occurred at a previous hearing.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has expressed her concern over the allegations that Cambridge Analytica exploited data of millions of Facebook users without their authorisation in election campaigns.
Facebook has already suspended Cambridge Analytica from its platform.
The social media giant admitted that an estimated 2,70,000 people had downloaded the app and shared their personal information with it.
However, the firm denied all wrongdoings and insisted it followed the correct procedures in obtaining and using data.
Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, late on Tuesday asked users to “delete” the social media platform, Facebook, amid alleged data leakage of its users for political purposes.
“It is time. #deletefacebook,” Brian Acton tweeted to more than 23,000 of his followers.
WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014.
Earlier on Tuesday, UK’s data protection watchdog sought a court warrant to search the London headquarters of the political data analytics consultancy that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and allegedly harvested Facebook profiles of US voters to influence their choices at the ballot box.
The UK Information Commissioner also ordered the auditors hired by Facebook to stand down when they visited the Cambridge Analytica headquarters.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 but Acton remained with the company for several years before quitting to start “Signal Foundation” earlier in 2018.
Last month, he invested $50 million into “Signal”, an independent alternative to hugely-popular WhatsApp.
Another WhatsApp co-founder, Jan Koum, still leads the company and sits on Facebook’s board.
IANS
