A Detailed Report on the Facebook & Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal. It details the data breach involving millions of users whose information was compromised and used without consent. The report highlights Cambridge Analytica's role in the scandal and Mark Zuckerberg's acknowledgment of the company's failure to adequately protect user data. It discusses the impact of the scandal, including the affected states (California, Texas, and Florida), and the steps taken by Facebook in response. The report also references key figures, like Christopher Wylie, who exposed the scandal, and the public outcry that followed, including the impact on Facebook's market capitalization and the calls for accountability from politicians. The report also delves into the specific data compromised, the number of affected users, and the types of information accessed, such as public profiles, current cities, birthdays, and, in some cases, access to news feeds and timelines. The report concludes with an overview of the apologies made by Mark Zuckerberg and his commitment to improving data privacy.

Running head: - FACEBOOK & CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA
FACEBOOK & CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
Cambridge Analytics had been identified be a part of the scandal in which millions of users
on Facebook had been compromised to allow their data to be used by Cambridge in their own
interest. This report states how Cambridge was identified to be the primary responsible of
carrying out the scandal and stealing the data from Facebook. In addition to this, Mark
Zuckerberg had apologised for the mistake, since it was his company’s fault to provision the
breach by installing poor measures of security to hamper and compromise customer data. In
addition to this, the report states that Mark Zuckerberg did not pay any heed to the fact of
their customers getting attacked by the breach and was against making the public a large
issue and create hype among the public. The most affected states had been California, Texas
and Florida.

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Table of Contents
Facebook & Cambridge Analytica.............................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................4

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Facebook & Cambridge Analytica
On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission had opened a specific investigation upon
Cambridge Analytica with the charges of accessing the data belonging to 50 million users on
the Facebook platform and that too without any serious consent (Edwards, 2019). It had been
described as a moment that had the inclusion of understanding the fact that personal data as
well as precipitated bring down of the price of Facebook in stocks.
This activity had been first reported in the month of December, 2015 by Harry
Davies, who was a journalist for the Guardian. However, Facebook had refused to make
comments upon the story than carrying out investigation for the same. Facebook specifically
had refused to make any comments upon any of the articles (Common, 2018). In regards to
this, the scandal had finally gained the spotlight in the year of 2018, March. Christopher
Wylie, who was an ex-employee of Cambridge, was the primary whistle blower for the
scandal since the first day.
All of the three organizations of news had simultaneously published on March, in the
year of 2018 and had given rise to a huge outcry among the public. More than a count of
$100 billion had been knocked off the market capitalization that had belonged to Facebook.
This also had the inclusion of politicians belonging to US as well as UK and had demanded
for answers from the CEO of the organization, Mark Zuckerberg (Kaiser, 2019). This scandal
had eventually given rise to the agreement of testifying in front of United States Congress.
The Observer as well as the New York Times had placed forward reports that the
entire dataset had the containment of information that belonged to 50 million users in
Facebook. On the other hand, Cambridge Analytica had placed forward claims that it had
only got hold of information that belonged to 30 million users in Facebook. However,
Facebook had later confirmed that it actually had the data up to a count of 87 million users of

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Facebook (Wylie, 2019). Out of this data, 70.6 million users specifically belonged to the state
of United States. Within the region of United States, California was considered to be the most
affected state in the whole of US having a count of 6.7 million users, Texas with 5.6 million
users as well as Florida with 4.3 million of the same.
In regards to this, Facebook had sent notifications to all of the users who had been
suspected to have been affected by the same. The information that was given out mainly had
the primary inclusion of public profile, current city as well as birthday (Henriksen, 2019). On
the contrary, some of the Facebook users also had granted the permission to access their
information present on their news feed, messages as well as timelines. In addition to this, the
information also compromised the location of each individual users on Facebook who had
been made a victim of the scandal.
In reference to this, Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg had first placed apologies for
the situation that had taken place terming it specifically to be an issue or a mistake in this
regard. He also stated the right of access to personal data as an important thing to be taken
into account and that his company had always followed the same even before the breach had
taken place (Singer & Brooking, 2019). He also had added the fact that it was completely his
mistake to compromise with the security conditions of the profiles and that it would have
been prevented if the company had looked a bit more careful into the protection as well as
privacy of the personal data of all its users.

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References
Common, M. F. (2018). Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: let this be the high-water mark
for impunity. LSE Business Review.
Edwards, J. L. (2019). An Examination of Consumers' Social Media Trust In the Wake of the
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Scandal (Doctoral dissertation).
Henriksen, E. E. (2019). Big data, microtargeting, and governmentality in cyber-times. The
case of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal (Master's thesis).
Kaiser, B. (2019). Targeted (1st ed.). United States: HarperCollins.
Singer, P., & Brooking, E. (2019). Likewar (1st ed.). United States: Amazon.
Wylie, C. (2019). Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America (1st ed.).
United States: Amazon.