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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Photo: Us House Tv Via Cnp / imago images / ZUMA Wire
In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica data protection scandal, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally targeted by US investigators. Washington Attorney General Karl Racine added Zuckerberg to his 2018 lawsuit against Facebook. The ongoing investigations have shown that the founder was involved in decisions around Cambridge Analytica and played a much more active role than previously known, Racine said.
In his lawsuit, the attorney general accuses Facebook, among other things, of having incorrectly informed users about the transfer of their data to third parties.
A Facebook spokesman denied the allegations.
They are unfounded against both the company and Zuckerberg, he told the Wall Street Journal.
In the Cambridge Analytica case, a scientist named Aleksandr Kogan offered a personality test on Facebook in 2016, which hundreds of thousands filled out.
At the time, Facebook allowed data from the respective Facebook friends of the test participants to be sent to Kogan's company.
The result was a data set that contained the data of 87 million Facebook members.
Kogan then sold it to the analysis company Cambridge Analytica without the people concerned being aware of it.
With the sale, Kogan violated Facebook's terms of use.
Cambridge Analytica, in turn, wanted to use this data to support the US Republican election campaign.
When the case became known two years later, Facebook came under massive criticism and promised improvements in data protection.
"Send a message"
According to Attorney General Racine, the investigation revealed that it was Zuckerberg's idea to rebuild the platform in 2010 so that developers of third-party apps can get free access to user data. His move could result in Zuckerberg having to pay a fine of up to $ 5,000 for all 300,000 people who may be affected in the District of Columbia, reports the New York Times - that would be up to $ 1.5 billion. According to Karl Racine, he wants to "send a message that company bosses will be held accountable for their actions." Facebook could and should object to the extension of the lawsuit to the CEO.
The company is currently under heavy pressure again.
Recently, statements by a former employee caused a sensation, accusing Facebook of being more interested in profits than in the well-being of its users.
The former Facebook manager Frances Haugen and today's whistleblower also appeared in the US Senate a few weeks ago.
The chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Richard Blumenthal, again invited Zuckerberg for a hearing on Wednesday.
One of Haugen's allegations is that Facebook knew from surveys of the negative impact of the Instagram photo platform on the mental well-being of some teenagers, but did too little about it.
Facebook rejects this.
pbe / dpa
