Facebook Apologises Over Data Leak with Full Page ads in 9 Newspapers

Facebook Apologises Over Data Leak with Full Page ads in 9 Newspapers

Facebook took out full-page ads in 3 U.S. newspapers and 6 UK newspapers to apologise for the misuse of user data.

The ad, signed by founder Mark Zuckerberg, took responsibility and apologised for Cambridge Analytica obtaining data of over 50 million users and using it in the favour of Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.

“We’re now taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” read the ads published in the UK’s The Observer, The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Express and Sunday Telegraph, as well as in The New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal in the US.

“This was a breach of trust and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time,” Zuckerberg wrote in the ad made in the form of a letter to Facebook users.

“I promise to do better for you,” he wrote.

According to CNN, the ad appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post in the U.S.

In the UK, the ad appeared on The Observer, The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Express and Sunday Telegraph.

See the ad below:

Social media users, however, aren’t buying it: many have pointed out that the apology would have been more convincing if the company hadn’t threatened to file a lawsuit against reporters who broke the story earlier this month.

This would be convincing if they hadn't threatened to bring a lawsuit against the reporters who broke the story. https://t.co/bifHzQYzRB

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) March 25, 2018

The scandal has caused Facebook’s stock prices to plunge, leaving Zuckerberg to promise “to do better for you”. The social media platform has already stopped third-party apps from mining “so much information” and has started “limiting the data apps get when [users] sign up”.