He took his time, but he got there in the end. Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the now critical Facebook data privacy debacle after several days of radio silence, confirming that the company messed up and they’ll do better. You know, more or less the same thing they say every time.
Posting directly to Facebook, Zuckerberg tried to assure his followers that most of the security holes exploited by Cambridge Analytica and associated parties have been plugged up anyway, but that the company is committed to going further.
While he argues that no Facebook app has the ability to rake in data from you and your friends willy-nilly these days, Zuckerberg says that he will ensure its an even more laborious process for app developers to mine your life:
We will restrict developers’ data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers’ access to your data if you haven’t used their app in 3 months. We will reduce the data you give an app when you sign in — to only your name, profile photo, and email address. We’ll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data. And we’ll have more changes to share in the next few days.
You should be aware that there’s a tool in your Facebook privacy settings which allows you to easily revoke data access for apps you’ve used in the path – including those borderline criminal quiz apps every idiot on the planet used to share wantonly – but in case you’re not, Zuck’s going to make life marginally easier. In his post, he promises that in the coming weeks they’ll put that tool smack bang at the top of everyone’s news feeds so you can do if you’ve been putting it off.
“While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn’t change what happened in the past,” Zuckerberg concluded. “We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.”
Lots of promises there. Time will tell whether Zuckerberg on Facebook are willing to go through with them.
