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posted by chromas on Friday April 19 2019, @09:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the We-take-your-privacy-very-seriously dept.

Federal Investigation of Facebook Could Hold Mark Zuckerberg Accountable on Privacy, Sources say:

Federal regulators investigating Facebook for mishandling its users’ personal information have set their sights on the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, exploring his past statements on privacy and weighing whether to seek new, heightened oversight of his leadership.

The discussions about how to hold Zuckerberg accountable for Facebook’s data lapses have come in the context of wide-ranging talks between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook that could settle the government’s more than year-old probe, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Both requested anonymity because the FTC’s inquiry is confidential under law.

Such a move could create new legal, political and public-relations headaches for one of Silicon Valley’s best known — and image conscious — corporate leaders. Zuckerberg is Facebook’s co-founder, chief executive, board chairman and most powerful stock owner, and a sanction from the federal government would be seen as a rare rebuke to him and the tech giant’s historic “move fast and break things” ethos.

Often, the FTC does not target executives in cases where it finds a company’s business practices have violated web users’ privacy. But critics said that targeting Zuckerberg could send a message to other tech giants that the agency is willing to hold top executives directly accountable for their firms’ repeated data misdeeds.

“The days of pretending this is an innocent platform are over, and citing Mark in a large scale enforcement action would drive that home in spades,” said Roger McNamee, an early investor in the company and one of Zuckerberg's foremost critics.

I wonder how many Soylentils (besides me) saw the privacy implications and never set up an account?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @08:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @08:04AM (#832879)

    Facebook is not at all about privacy, it is about controlled crowd manipulation at industrial scale. The puppet Zuckerberg failed to bring desired results, and for this he must be punished by his angry masters. Equivalent disillusion by the large scale results contradicting the original task is what caused urgent demolition of G+. In both cases, data are only an excuse.