Facebook under pressure from advertisers following data scandal

Mar 22, 2018 | International News, News

FILE PHOTO: Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

Chihiro Miya

Many advertisers have threatened to pull ad campaigns from Facebook following last Saturday’s revelation that more than 50 million users’ personal information has been misused for years, according to BBC Radio.

BBC also reported members of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), a trade body which represents major UK advertisers, will meet with Facebook on Friday.

“I think that clients have come to a point quite rightly where enough is enough,” said M&C Saatchi CEO David Kershaw on Thursday’s BBC Radio.

“I don’t think they’re bluffing, I mean I think they are going to exert real pressure,” Kershaw said.

“We live in a very strong oligopoly with Facebook and Google.

“Digital media this year, we are forecasting will grow by 10 per cent. Sixty per cent in every pound of that increase will go to Facebook and Google.”

Going forward, Kershaw believes that lots of money will still flow to Facebook, and thinks the test will be whether we Facebook makes any real changes.

Facebook leak scandal

Zuckerberg: ‘I’m sure someone’s trying’ to disrupt 2018 midterm elections. Photo credit by CNN

More than 50 million Facebook users’ data was harvested by British data analysis company Cambridge Analytica, and allegedly used by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The massive database was collected from Facebook by an application named ‘thisisyourdigitallife.’

Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan created the personality quiz app in 2013.

Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday it was installed by around 300,000 people, who in turn indirectly shared their friends’ data.

In total, Kogan was able to access tens of millions of user records.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke the silence regarding the massive data scandal on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg admitted that the company made mistakes with the how it handles user privacy.

“I’m really sorry that this happened,” Zuckerberg told CNN on Wednesday.

“We basically have a responsibility to protect people’s data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve the opportunity to serve people.”

“One of the most important things we need to do here is make sure that we tell everyone whose data was affected by one of these rogue apps,” Zuckerberg said.

“And we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna build a tool where anyone can go and see if their data was a part of this.”

#DeleteFacebook

People reacted on Twitter regarding Facebook data scandal with hashtags calling for people to ‘DeleteFacebook.’

Facebook’s U.S. advertising revenue has been over $33 billion (USD) in 2018, with the social platform boasting more than two billion monthly active users.