After Cambridge Analytica Facebook COO Sandberg admits other possible misuses

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After the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg admitted that the company cannot rule out other cases of misuse.

In the wake of recent revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg doesn’t exclude other data misuse.

Sandberg gave two interviews last weeks to National Public Radio and NBC’s “Today Show during which she admitted the severe responsibility of the company. She pointed out that Facebook was not able to prevent third parties from abusing its platform, she said that the company should have taken further steps to protect the privacy of its users.

“We know that we did not do enough to protect people’s data,” Sandberg told NPR. “I’m really sorry for that. Mark is really sorry for that, and what we’re doing now is taking really firm action.”

“Safety and security is never done, it’s an arms race,” she said. “You build something, someone tries to abuse it.”

“But the bigger is, ‘Should we have taken these steps years ago anyway?'” Sandberg said. “And the answer to that is yes.”

“We really believed in social experiences, we really believed in protecting privacy, but we were way too idealistic,” she added. 

“We did not think enough about the abuse cases and now we’re taking really firm steps across the board.”

One of the most debated aspects of the Cambridge Analytica scandal is that Facebook was aware of the misuses years before.  Unfortunately, this is true and Sandberg confirmed it. She said that Facebook was first aware two and a half years ago that Cambridge Analytica had obtained user data in an illegal way.

“When we received word that this researcher gave the data to Cambridge Analytica, they assured us it was deleted,” she said. “We did not follow up and confirm, and that’s on us — and particularly once they were active in the election, we should have done that.”

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