No significant increase in Facebook users deactivating their account: Zuckerberg 

Washington, April 12

The Cambridge Analytica scandal in which personal data of over 87 million Facebook users, including 500,000 Indians, was compromised, has not hit the social media platform in a significant way in terms of people deactivating their accounts, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said.

Zuckerberg, 33, also the founder of Facebook, acknowledged this during a Congressional hearing yesterday, his second in two days, on issues related on data privacy and security in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“Yes,” Zuckerberg said when Congresswoman Dana Louise DeGette asked whether Facebook has witnessed no significant increase in users deactivating their accounts.

“Yes, that’s correct,” he said when DeGette asked since the revelations, Facebook has also not noticed a decrease in user interaction on Facebook.

Zuckerberg said as a result of the scandal, and the questions raised, Facebook is going to put, at the top of everyone’s app when they sign in, a tool that walks people through the settings and gives people the choices and asks them to make decisions on how they want their settings be set.

Everyone around the world deserves good privacy controls, he said.

“We have had a lot of these controls in place for years. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requires us to do a few more things, and we’re going to extend that to the world,” he told lawmakers.

The GDPR is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union.

Introduced by the European Union, GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation requires that the company’s request for user consent in a clear and concise way, using language that is understandable,

It is prescription on how companies treat consumer data. And it makes it clear that consumers need to be in control of their own data.

“I think we may be updating it a little bit. But, as you say, we’ve had the ability to download your information for years now. And people have the ability to see everything that they have in Facebook, to take that out, delete their account and move their data anywhere that they want,” he said.

Responding to a question, Zuckerberg acknowledged that a lot of people probably just accept terms of service without taking the time to read through it.

“I view our responsibility not as just legally complying with laying it out and getting that consent, but actually trying to make sure that people understand what’s happening throughout the product,” he said.

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