Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took out full-page newspaper ads to issue an apology for the data privacy scandal that has enveloped the social network.
The apology, which was published in several major newspapers around the world, is the latest attempt of Zuckerberg and the social network to stem the #DeleteFacebook movement. However, the apology also mentioned something that should scare Facebook users.
Facebook CEO Apologizes For Data Scandal
Zuckerberg opened the apology advertisement with a statement that succinctly encapsulates how tech companies should treat the issue of data privacy.
"We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can't, we don't deserve it," the ad starts with bigger letters, before diving into the rest of Zuckerberg's apology.
The advertisement goes on to refer to "a quiz app built by a university researcher" as the one that was responsible for leaking information of millions of Facebook users. "This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again," Zuckerberg wrote.
Among the initiatives that the social network has started is limiting the amount and kinds of data that Facebook apps are able to retrieve. Facebook will also remind users which apps they have given access to their information to let them turn off permissions.
Facebook Still Unsafe, Apparently
Zuckerberg, however, continued with the advertisement by saying something that had an ominous tone.
"We're also investigating every single app that had access to large amounts of data before we fixed this. We expect there are others."
That is a scary statement, as it is a reversal of what Facebook previously said that it did not know if there are other cases similar to what happened with Cambridge Analytica. The social network is saying that there are other apps that were able to access significant amounts of data, but the eye-opening part is that it does not yet know all of them. This means that there may be many other instances of the data breach, but Facebook is unaware.
Will You Join The #DeleteFacebook Movement?
The apology, which was published in the likes of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times in the United States, and in The Sunday Times, Sunday Mirror, and The Observer in the United Kingdom, might not be enough.
The #DeleteFacebook movement is gaining steam on social media, with Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk even going as far as deleting the Facebook pages of his companies. Will you be the latest one to get rid of your account on the social network?
