Facebook’s idiosyncratic approach toward safeguarding the personal information of its users has attracted more political outrage than the company has ever experienced. The American and British legislatures have invited Mark Zuckerberg to visit and be complained at in person, the Federal Trade Commission has let leakan investigation, and German officials are officially vexed.
What irks them is the revelation that a third-party Facebook app masquerading as a personality quiz extracted information that was sold to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which in turn provided services to Republicans. A short line is being drawn from Facebook data-profiteering to the election, still unfathomable to many Democrats, of some guy named Donald J. Trump, writes Declan McCullagh.