San Francisco — Facebook said that it has suspended around 200 apps for possible misuse of data after its CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised in March to launch full app investigation and audit in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Ime Archibong, vice president of product partnerships at Facebook, said in a blog that the apps, which he did not specify in detail, will be subjected to a thorough investigation as to whether they did in fact misuse any data.
“Facebook will investigate all the apps that had access to large amounts of information before… significantly reducing the data apps could access,” he wrote.
He said Facebook’s investigation process is in full swing and a comprehensive review is being conducted “to identify every app that had access to this amount of Facebook data.”
Archibong said any app running on the platform that either refused or failed an audit would be banned from Facebook. If any of the investigated apps or other apps was found to have misused data, Facebook will ban them and notify their owners at Facebook’s website.
“It will show people if they or their friends installed an app that misused data before 2015 — just as we did for Cambridge Analytica,” Archibong said.
Cambridge Analytica, a British data analysis company, was accused of illegally accessing the data of some 87 million Facebook users for its political data analysis allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
But the British company has denied misusing Facebook data for the Trump campaign, and announced closure of all its operations in March.
“The company is immediately ceasing all operations” and bankruptcy proceedings would soon begin, it said in a statement on March 2. ? PNA/Xinhua
