Facebook, and more so Meta, has a bit of a sour history with consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica because of the data scandal that happened back in 2018. Basically, Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit, which claimed that it gave third parties access to user data without their consent.
Meta managed to cause what was dubbed as “The largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action.” This was according to Keller Rohrback L.L.P – the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
Even Steven?
Again, originally prompted back in 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for court against Meta because the latter allegedly disclosed the information of 87 million users improperly with the former, which, at the time, was linked to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
The case was broadened to focus on Facebook’s overall data-sharing practices. Plaintiffs alleged that Facebook “granted numerous third parties access to their Facebook content and information without their consent and that Facebook failed to adequately monitor the third parties’ access to, and use of, that information.” Judges overseeing the lawsuit in the Nothern District of California will now have to approve the settlement.
You can bet that this scandal wasn’t okay with the rest of the world. Prompting global outrage, the Cambridge Analytica case hit Meta with a flurry of scrutiny and criticism that heavily questioned its data practices. After the revelations, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened a probe into Facebook over concerns that the company had violated the terms of a prior agreement with the agency, which required it to give users clear notifications when their data was being shared with third parties.
In 2019, Facebook agreed to settle $5 billion with the FTC, along with agreeing to pay $100 million to settle another case, but with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations the company made misleading disclosure about the risk of improper handling of user data.
Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018 after the allegations and became highly controversial because the data it harvested from Facebook was later used to inform political campaigns. Also in 2018, Britain’s Channel 4 News filmed Cambridge Analytica executives suggesting that the firm would use sex workers, bribes, ex-spies, and fake news to help candidates win global votes.
The Wrap
We all know what happened in the aftermath of the event – Facebook rebranded to Meta, hoping to shed much of the negative press that hounded ‘Facebook’, to bear a smearless brand that would lead the shift towards their vision of a ‘Metaverse’. Facebook remains, though the overarching company and parent of all Facebook-aligned and related apps is Meta. It’s still the biggest Social Media tech player around, but the growth of Facebook itself has seen a slowdown in growth, mainly due to policy changes imposed by Apple.
Please note:
This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin.
Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.
