Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sued by Washington, DC AG

Washington D.C., First Printed Might 23, 2022, 7:50 PM IST

The Cambridge Analytica scandal returned to haunt Meta aka Fb CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Washington District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A Racine asserting that his workplace is suing the social media behemoth's founder for his position in Facebook's deceptive privacy practices and failure to protect thousands and thousands of users' knowledge.

The AG's case seeks to carry Zuckerberg accountable for his role in Fb violating the District's consumer protection legal guidelines by misrepresenting the protection of user data and their blatant disregard and misuse of sensitive, private information belonging to District residents.

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In a sequence of Tweets, Racine said: "Our investigation shows intensive proof that Zuckerberg was personally involved in failures that led to the Cambridge Analytica incident."

The AG's complaint notes that 'Fb has develop into a wildly profitable and unique enterprise, deriving monumental wealth from acquiring and monetizing the information of those billions of people main their lives in Fb's digital ecosystem.'

The grievance further claims that 'Facebook -- at Zuckerberg's direction -- shifted its business model in this way as a result of it acknowledged that it could possibly be even more profitable if it may harness and promote the power to dependably affect its users' behaviour to third events. Fb, due to this fact, encouraged (and, at occasions, teamed up with) builders and researchers to gather and analyze Facebook consumer knowledge so that it might better discover ways to manipulate its personal customers’ moods and influence what they buy and even whether and the way they vote.

Cambridge Analytica Case

In March 2018, whistleblower Christopher Wylie publicly revealed that a company referred to as Cambridge Analytica -- a London-based electioneering agency -- exfiltrated the personal information of more than 70 million Facebook customers in the US in order to influence the outcomes of the 2016 United States presidential election. 

This knowledge trove included Fb users’ ages, interests, pages they've preferred, groups they belong to, physical locations, political affiliation, non secular affiliation, relationships, and images, as well as their full names, cellphone numbers, and email addresses.

The personal information of the more than 70 million US Facebook users that Cambridge Analytica used to control the election accounted for more than half the full votes in the course of the 2016 presidential elections, in an election that was successfully decided by just a few hundred thousand folks. 

Three years later, Facebook and Zuckerberg publicly condemned Cambridge Analytica's information collection, which based on AG Racine, solely demonstrates that what they are saying publicly is a part of an intentional plan to mask the devastating penalties of their actions.

The Allegations

Specializing in the Cambridge Analytica case, the grievance accused Facebook of actively encouraging firms like Cambridge Analytica to use the platform to affect and manipulate consumer behaviour.

'What is most troubling is that Facebook regarded into Cambridge Analytica and decided that it posed a danger to consumer data but selected to bury these concerns rather than cease them, as that could have hurt Fb’s (and Zuckerberg’s) backside line. As an alternative of coming clean, Facebook continued to help Cambridge Analytica win a United States presidential election,' the grievance stated.

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Last Updated Might 23, 2022, 7:51 PM IST