Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came out of hiding to acknowledge the data breach scandal that threatens to obliterate his social media platform.
Zuckerberg released a statement via his official Facebook page amid reports that a British-based analytics firm that worked with the Trump campaign had obtained personal data on 50 million users.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Zuckerberg wrote.
He added:
“This was a breach of trust between [Aleksandr] Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that.”
Also on Wednesday, Facebook announced a new policy that will limit app developers’ access to personal data on the platform. But the new change may be too little, too late.
Facebook investors dumped more shares on Wednesday, sending Facebook’s stock price tumbling to a low of $169 a share.
Market analysts say Facebook is in trouble because it was never worth $500 billion for a website that has no product to sell.
Master hacker Julian Assange noted that Facebook has no product to sell because the product is YOU.
“If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
A Reddit user uncovered leaked text messages from Zuckerberg who referred to Facebook users as “Dumb f–ks” for sharing their personal data, such as phone numbers and even home addresses, on Facebook.
Meanwhile, #DeleteFacebook hashtags have been trending all day on Twitter.com.
“If you’re angry about what Facebook has done with our data then just #deletefacebook. Remember we aren’t the customers we are the product,” wrote one user on Twitter.
