Mark Zuckerberg was sued by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine in a consumer protection lawsuit Monday, with the state alleging the Meta CEO encouraged lax data protection policies allowing Facebook to gain enormous profits while also enabling the 2016 Cambridge Analytica data breach.
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In the complaint, the AG alleges Zuckerberg blatantly violated the D.C.’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act by publicly claiming to prioritize the protection of user data while urging behind the scenes to have privacy policies “as simple as we can get away with.”
“Zuckerberg is not just a figurehead at Facebook; he is personally involved in nearly every major decision the company makes, and his level of influence is no secret,” Racine stated in the complaint.
Facebook’s purportedly lax data protection policies led to the London-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica’s exfiltration of personal data on 70 million Facebook users, including more than 340,000 D.C. residents, to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election results, according to the suit.
“Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook platform — in a way that Facebook and Zuckerberg encouraged — to influence and manipulate the outcome of a United States presidential election,” the suit says.
The suit claims Facebook knew by December 2015 that Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher affiliated with Cambridge University, had violated its policies by selling user data that his “thisisyourdigitallife” personality test app had collected for Cambridge Analytica for $800,000. Despite knowing of the violations, Facebook didn’t do enough to enforce its policies at the time, the suit alleges.
The political consulting firm used that same data to promote Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz during the elections.
“Facebook simply requested that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica delete all data that they received through the Facebook Platform and accepted their word that they had done so,” Racine noted in the suit. “Facebook did not take any additional steps to determine whether the harvested data was, in fact, accounted for and destroyed. And in fact, the data was not destroyed.”
Racine said in his statement Monday that the evidence shows Zuckerberg was personally involved in Facebook’s failure to protect the privacy and data of its users.
“This unprecedented security breach exposed tens of millions of Americans’ personal information, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s policies enabled a multi-year effort to mislead users about the extent of Facebook’s wrongful conduct,” Racine said. “This lawsuit is not only warranted, but necessary, and sends a message that corporate leaders, including CEOs, will be held accountable for their actions.”
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