The revelations that Cambridge Analytica gathered personal information from 87 million Facebook users made some people and small businesses jittery.
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In lieu of the absent Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer was yesterday grilled by MPs in parliament.
For now, the answer appears to be no. Facebook released its quarterly financials Wednesday, which showed that, at least as far as investor and advertising money is concerned, the company that started in Zuckerberg’s dorm room is on solid ground.
The report detailed how Cambridge Analytica paid a researcher to harvest millions of U.S. voters’ Facebook data using a personality quiz app to try to target them with political advertising.
Mr Schroepfer told MPs that new measures to boost transparency on the social network would be introduced in the United Kingdom by July this year.
Echoing his testimony on Capitol Hill earlier in April, Zuckerberg noted that Facebook has “a responsibility to keep the community safe”, and acknowledged that the company hasn’t been doing enough to prevent Facebook’s tools from being hijacked.
In written testimony, he will say he is “deeply sorry” about the scandal, according to remarks seen by Business Insider.
Schroepfer said: “I believe we are producing more extensive information for both the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner”.
However, the social network admitted it will take another year to begin regulating political adverts on the platform.
Schroeder was filling in for Zuckerberg in front of the British lawmakers after the Facebook chief declined to appear himself, a decision the parliamentary committee chairman had described as astonishing.
Labour MP Paul Farrelly said Facebook’s actions had reminded him of a book written by Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi about how the investment bank Goldman Sachs operated like a “vampire squid” ahead of the financial crisis. “You want us to say we’re responsible, which we have on multiple occasions, and you want transparency on ads and other things”.
Facebook shares rose after the social network reported a surprisingly strong 63 per cent rise in profit and an increase in users, with no sign that business was hurt by a scandal over the mishandling of personal data. The company has 10 million small businesses with Facebook pages in the USA and 6 million advertisers, majority small companies; CEO Mark Zuckerberg was quoted earlier this month as saying he doesn’t believe the company has seen a meaningful impact on ad spending from the scandal.
Cambridge Analytica has said it pitched to the Leave.EU campaign group for work, but that no work was undertaken.
“I understand, he has been getting requests from all over the world to come talk about this”, Schroepfer said.
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Referring to Milner specifically, Schroepfer said, “I don’t know if he had all the information”, adding that the now-vice-president is an “honest person”.
