SAN FRANCISCO: Opinion polls published on Sunday in the United States and Germany indicated that a majority of the public were losing trust in Facebook over privacy, as the firm ran advertisements in British and US newspapers apologising to users.
Fewer than half of Americans trust Facebook to obey US privacy laws, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday, while a survey published by Bild am Sonntag, Germany’s largest-selling Sunday paper, found 60 per cent of Germans fear that Facebook and other social networks are having a negative impact on democracy. Facebook Founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologised for “a breach of trust” in advertisements placed in papers.
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it,” said the advertisement, which appeared in plain text on a white background with a tiny Facebook logo.
The world’s largest social media network is coming under growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States, and is trying to repair its reputation among users, advertisers, lawmakers and investors.
This follows allegations that the British consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to users’ information to build profiles of American voters that were later used to help elect Donald Trump in 2016.
US Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that Facebook had not been “fully forthcoming” over how Cambridge Analytica had used Facebook data. SEE ALSO 16
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