US investigators are making a new attempt to hold Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg personally accountable in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The Attorney General of the capital Washington, Karl Racine, filed a lawsuit against the current head of the Facebook umbrella group Meta. As Facebook boss, Zuckerberg was directly involved in decisions that led to the scandal, Racine argued on Monday.
The attorney general tried last fall to add Zuckerberg to his 2018 lawsuit against Facebook. However, this had meanwhile been rejected by the judge because Racine had waited too long with it. In its 2018 lawsuit, the investigators accused Facebook, among other things, of having misinformed users about the disclosure of their data.
In the Cambridge Analytica case, the analytics firm had gained access to some data from millions of Facebook users without their knowledge. The company had published a survey in which some Facebook users took part. But thanks to the privacy settings of the time, she also got access to some of her Facebook friends’ information. When this became known, Facebook came under massive criticism and promised improvements in data protection.
Cambridge Analytica also worked for Donald Trump, who was victorious at the time, for a while during the 2016 presidential election campaign. However, the role of this data in the success was later downplayed. The company has since filed for bankruptcy.
