Facebook: Zuckerberg admits mistakes in the European Parliament

Fake news, privacy and well-tapped data by Cambridge Analytica: The Facebook boss had a lot to explain in Brussels. He apologized, but dodged.

Facebook: Zuckerberg admits mistakes in the European Parliament
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    Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has also, at his hearing in EU parliament, made an affair about passing on of data of millions of users, and asked forgiveness for his company's failures. In recent years, Facebook has "not done enough to prevent instruments we develop from being used to harm," he read from a statement prevalent in Facebook: "That was a mistake, and I'm sorry."

    Zuckerberg had been summoned before group leaders of parliamentary groups of European Parliament in Brussels to comment on alleged misuse of data of up to 87 million Facebook users by British company Cambridge Analytica. Among or things, y were to be used illicitly for election campaign of today's US president Donald Trump – and possibly even during vote on Brexit. According to Facebook, up to 2.7 million users were affected in Europe.

    The President of Parliament, Antonio Tajani, spoke of an "alarming scandal". The citizens of Europe wanted to be sure that ir data would not be used for manipulation of elections – not even in exchange for free use of services. Social platforms also need to make sure that terrorists do not connect to m. It is also about preventing spread of racism, antisemitism and homophobia across platforms.

    Zuckerberg asks for time

    In his statement, Zuckerberg responded to several criticisms: "Wher it is about fake news, foreign influence in elections or developers who abuse information from people – we have not considered our responsibility broad enough". Facebook now needs time to make necessary changes. Facebook wanted to increase number of people working in field of protection and security from 7,000 to 10,000 in Europe.

    In front of group leaders, Zuckerberg also referred to measures taken by Facebook to better protect user data. This included easier ways to turn off data transfer to apps or to delete page history. In addition, before presidential election in France, 30,000 fake accounts were deleted, which wanted to disseminate disinformation. Moreover, advertising should be clearly identifiable in future.

    According to handpicked statement of Facebook chief, politicians had more than half an hour of time to ask questions. They wanted to know, among or things, wher Zuckerberg could guarantee that a scandal like Cambridge Analytica would not repeat, why Facebook did not inform users more about when Zuckerberg knew about it and wher he considered Facebook a monopoly. Guy Verhofstadt, group chairman of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, also sharpened Facebook boss: Zuckerberg had to decide wher to go into history in a series with technology innovators like Apple's founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates – or "a genius that has created a digital monster that destroys our democracies".

    Date Of Update: 23 May 2018, 12:03
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