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| Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg |
A Washington, DC consumer protection case filed against Facebook's scandal-plagued CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, may hold him personally responsible for damages.
After the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal broke in 2017, the office of DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit in DC Superior Court claiming that Facebook deceived customers about its privacy rules. During his inquiry, Racine found that Zuckerberg was much more involved in the event than prosecutors had previously suspected, according to The New York Times. As a result, Racine plans to include Zuckerberg in the lawsuit. As far as I know, this would be the first time a regulator has attempted to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for the company's conduct.
According to the lawsuit, Facebook misled users by claiming that their data would be kept private when, in fact, it did not. In fact, Facebook's Open Graph API was so lax in protecting user data that a dubious political company like Cambridge Analytica, which worked with right-wing clients including advisers for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, was able to make off with comprehensive information on 87 million users. Washington, D.C., claims that Facebook misled users about the security of their data, failed to supervise third-party app usage of it, and intentionally made it difficult for users to manage privacy settings while also failing to disclose how certain applications might overrule their choices. It's also claimed that for two years, Facebook did not make any public disclosures about the Cambridge Analytica breach.
In 2019, Facebook attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed as well as to prevent the DC attorney general's office from seeing specific internal documents in discovery, but it failed. This sparked an investigation by the Times, which included interviews with many current and former Facebook employees, along with an examination of Zuckerberg's congressional testimony.
Racine told the Times that his agency decided that Zuckerberg's participation in the Open Graph API was sufficiently crucial that it warranted adding him to the lawsuit in 2010. To the Times' chagrin, Racine referred to the API as "Zuckerberg's invention."
With regard to Zuckerberg's involvement, Racine told the newspaper, "it is certainly justified, and should send a message that business executives, including the CEO, will be held responsible."
In response to the Times' questions, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told them: "These accusations are as meritless now as they were when the District filed its lawsuit." In the future, "we will continue to aggressively defend ourselves and concentrate on facts." "We will continue."
In the same way that it has battled every other aspect of the case, Facebook can and probably likely will submit a motion to reject Racine's attempt to include Zuckerberg in the lawsuit. It was revealed in September 2021 that in order to keep Zuckerberg out of Cambridge Analytica's probe, Facebook agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission a multi-billion dollar settlement (which was a small change for the business).
Attorneys general from all across the nation is bringing identical lawsuits against the business. An internal document leak by whistleblower Francis Haugen exposed Facebook's apparent dishonesty on a variety of issues, from whether or not users are exempt from company rules to company research showing Instagram's psychological harm to some young women. This further damaged Facebook's public image. According to reports, Facebook is considering rebranding itself in an effort to stave off increasing brand toxicity.
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