Facebook Suspends Thousands of Accounts Due to Data Concerns
Facebook has suspended "tens of thousands" of apps connected to the platform after they were suspected of collecting large amounts of data, according to a news report.
After Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the leak of tens of millions of Facebook users back in 2014 in order to sell psychological profiles of American voters, Facebook promised to review all apps that had access to large amounts of information. "It is important to understand that the apps that have been suspended are associated with about 400 developers. This is not necessarily an indication that these apps were posing a threat to people. Many were not live but were still in their testing phase when we suspended them. It is not unusual for developers to have multiple test apps that never get rolled out. And in many cases, the developers did not respond to our request for information so we suspended them, honoring our commitment to take action," Facebook says in a blog post.
In a few cases, Facebook banned apps completely. "That can happen for any number of reasons including inappropriately sharing data obtained from us, making data publicly available without protecting people’s identity or something else that was in clear violation of our policies. We have not confirmed other instances of misuse to date other than those we have already notified the public about, but our investigation is not yet complete," notes Facebook.
"Our new agreement with the FTC will bring its own set of requirements for bringing oversight to app developers. It requires developers to annually certify compliance with our policies. Any developer that doesn’t go along with these requirements will be held accountable," says the blog.
Looking for a reprint of this article?
From high-res PDFs to custom plaques, order your copy today!
