By Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg pledged a
far-reaching investigation into outsiders' handling of the
company's user data, in his first public comments on a controversy
that has shaken the social-media company and prompted renewed calls
for governments to better regulate privacy. ( Read the full
statement.)
Mr. Zuckerberg, in a post on Facebook Wednesday, said the
company has already taking many steps to address user privacy in
recent years, but he said "we also made mistakes, there's more to
do, and we need to step up and do it."
Among the measures he said Facebook will take, the company will
investigate and look for any potential abuses of personal data by
developers on its platform that have had access to large amounts of
user data. Facebook will audit any apps that display suspicious
activity and notify any users affected, he said.
The comments come five days after a crisis that has prompted
calls for him to testify before legislators in the U.S. and Europe,
carved tens of billions of dollars off Facebook's value, and raised
new questions about the leadership of one of the world's most
powerful technology companies.
"Facebook is exhibiting signs of systemic mismanagement, which
is a new concern we had not contemplated until recently," Pivotal
Research analyst Brian Wieser said in a note Wednesday morning. Mr.
Wieser has a "sell" rating on the stock.
Facebook says Mr. Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl
Sandberg have focused on addressing the concerns behind the scenes.
"Mark, Sheryl and their teams are working around the clock to get
all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward,
because they understand the seriousness of this issue," a Facebook
spokesman said.
The current crisis began with its statement Friday that it was
looking into reports that data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica,
which worked with the Trump campaign in 2016, improperly accessed
and retained user data. That episode involved information on
potentially tens of millions of Facebook users.
The Federal Trade Commission is now investigating whether
Facebook's user-data practices violated terms of a 2011 settlement.
Users have aired their anger over social media, using the hashtag
#deletefacebook. Late Tuesday, Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp,
a messaging app that Facebook bought for $22 billion in 2014,
appeared to join them, with a message on his Twitter account saying
"It is time. #deletefacebook." Mr. Acton declined to comment.
"The entire company is outraged we were deceived," the Facebook
spokesman said, saying the company would do "whatever steps are
required" to protect user information.
The scrutiny has weighed on Facebook staff, with many
questioning why Mr. Zuckerberg hasn't been publicly discussing the
company's role, according to current and former employees. At a
question-and-answer session for employees Tuesday about the
episode, Facebook lawyer Paul Grewal presided. Mr. Zuckerberg and
Ms. Sandberg weren't in the room.
There's been a lot of unhappiness internally," said one former
employee who has been recently in touch with ex-colleagues.
Over the weekend and early this week, senior Facebook officials
spent much of the time trying to nail down the facts of what
happened with Cambridge Analytica, and contemplating whether and
how Mr. Zuckerberg should respond, a person familiar with the
matter said.
Facebook has been under fire for more than a year on a range of
issues, but criticism intensified last month when special counsel
Robert Mueller secured indictments against a group of Russians for
manipulating Facebook and other social platforms to sow
discord.
In the month since, Mr. Zuckerberg posted publicly on his
Facebook page -- typically his main venue for disseminating his
views -- only twice: once with photos of his family celebrating
Chinese New Year, the other of them celebrating the Jewish holiday
of Purim.
Publicly, Facebook has left it to other senior executives to
make its case, often using posts on rival Twitter Inc. -- a
strategy that has sometimes backfired.
Executives responded to the current uproar over the weekend by
arguing that what happened didn't constitute a data breach --
prompting users, privacy advocates and others to say it was missing
the point.
The company stumbled in its dealings with Congress, waiting
nearly two weeks last September before deciding to turn over more
details of Russian ads on its platform, and sending the company's
lawyer Colin Stretch rather than Mr. Zuckerberg to testify in
Washington. "Perhaps internally they felt that it didn't rise to
the level of direct involvement by the CEO," said Rep. Adam Schiff,
a California Democrat, "but I think they realize now that while the
platform has immense positive impact in the world, that it has had
some significant downsides."
Last month, Facebook's head of advertising, Rob Goldman, drew
fire when he defended Facebook's handling of the Russia crisis and
argued the Russians bought ads to exploit social divisions, not
primarily to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election -- a point
that some in Washington interpreted as contradicting the
indictment.
Internally, Mr. Zuckerberg has appeared to take the criticism in
stride. During an employee question-and-answer session last month,
Mr. Zuckerberg said Mr. Goldman's comments didn't reflect the
company's thinking, people familiar with his comments said, but he
still backed Facebook's strategy of having a select group of senior
executives engage directly with critics, academics and journalists
on Twitter and be more transparent about the company's process and
thinking.
--Robert McMillan contributed to this article.
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2018 16:35 ET (20:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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