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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Mark Zuckerberg testifies to Senate

    Mark Zuckerberg testifies to Senate

    This past week, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the United States Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees to answer questions regarding Facebook’s role in influencing the 2016 Presidential election.

    Zuckerberg’s testimony occurs just weeks after information came out revealing that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica improperly gathered information and data of up to 87 million Facebook users.  

    Cambridge Analytica was used by President Trump’s 2016 campaign as a tool to mine information about potential voters and possibly influence the results of the 2016 election.

    According to Time Magazine, ” The company is reeling from news that a Trump-affiliated data-mining firm used ill-gotten data from millions of users to try to influence elections. Facebook says as many as 87 million people may have had their data accessed — an increase from the 50 million disclosed in published reports.

    Among the latest changes: Facebook is restricting access that apps can get about users’ events, as well as information about groups such as member lists and content.

    In addition, the company is also removing the option to search for users by entering a phone number or an email address. While this helped individuals find friends who may have a common name, Facebook says businesses that had phone or email information on customers were able to collect profile information this way.”

    Zuckerberg took to the stand on Tuesday were he answered a variety of questions for five hours ranging from Facebook’s privacy policy to Facebook’s role regarding fake news. Zuckerberg offered many apologies because many thought that since he is the CEO that he should be held accountable.

    Although many thought that this data breach would ruin Facebook’s stock price, it did not. During Zuckerberg’s two days on Capitol Hill, Facebook’s shares increased 4.5 % as well as Zuckerberg’s net worth increasing by $3 billion dollars.

    Even if Facebook doesn’t change their privacy policy, many people will continue to use the platform because of it ability to connect other around the globe.

     

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