Social Media Glitches, The Legal Implications

 

The social media industry had continually witnessed spates of users’ data privacy attacks in recent times that has exposed companies such as Facebook to increasing threat and that has affected millions of its users across the globe. These attacks have come from different sources including those from purported rogue companies, as in the case of Cambridge Analytica, where a researcher falsely obtained and sold personal data of over 87 million Facebook users. 

Whereas some of these glitches were caused by bugs in the software that allowed apps developers gain access to the private data of users.54 The report stated that the company had discovered a ‘nasty bug’ in its photo software, which allowed authorized app programmes to access photos of up to 6.8 million of its users.

As many as 1,500 third-party apps that the software allowed to access photo on Facebook Stories, Facebook Marketplace as well as uploaded photos that users never shared. Facebook has been a major culprit in the last couple of years of privacy violations that have resulted in more than two dozen class-action lawsuits.55

The social media company, which as at November 2018 had a market share of 69.33 percent,56 appears to have the highest numbers of users’ data privacy issues that the company never saw coming.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal created a major smear on the reputation of Facebook, and it was so bad that the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg had to appear before the US Congress, and the Senate Judicial and Commerce committee to answer questions. That was indeed the first time in which Zuckerberg had ever appeared before the house.

The incessant data privacy breeches and the huge penalties imposed on Facebook, which has also affected investor confidence, the company has become a serious source of concerns for users as well as for the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). There are doubts about the ability of some of these social media companies to secure adequately, the personal information of billions of users across the world.

The Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal made major headlines in the media and led to the expedient review and release of the new European Data Protection Regulation in May 25, 2018 to harmonize data privacy policies in all member states across the European Union.

Barely two weeks after Facebook announced the software bug that compromised the private data of millions of its users, there have been several lawsuits involving the company; this trend is bound to increase in the coming weeks. It is likely that some content curators, influencers, and digital marketing and advertising company may soon join in the class action lawsuits, especially regarding the release of private data of users of Facebook Marketplace to these third-party vendors.

Undoubtedly, this is a possibility because curators, social media managers and digital marketers who have copyright on their contents already are the ones who post contents on Facebook Marketplace the most; and most likely, it will further expose Facebook to even more class-action lawsuits.

If Facebook continue to experience more data privacy issues in the future, there is no doubt it will affect the entire social media industry negatively and this will lead to a drop in the user penetration rate, revenue earnings and certainly, a reduction of the level of confidence by both users and investors.

Undoubtedly, Facebook puts revenue earnings from advertising above data protection presently; that is why we are seeing so much of these glitches and violations. But all of that must change, and the company must begin to make concerted effort to reduce the occurrence of bugs in their software, introduce better monitoring, and tighter controls to reduce the present spate of breeches and lawsuits.

Facebook published on its blog in April 2018 a plan it thought would restrict data access on its platform. Mike Schroepfer, Chief Technology Officer of the company believed that it would be better to protect people’s information while still enabling developers to create useful experiences.57

These changes, which Schroepfer said will affect many key features such as Event, Group and Page APIs as well as Facebook Login, Instagram platform API, Text and Call history etc., is coming at the peak of the Cambridge Analytica crises. When you look back now, and you consider the series of data integrity issues that have arisen in such a short time, it becomes clear that the company had not actually done enough to prevent these occurrences.

However, it will be wrong to single out Facebook as the only culprit of data privacy breeches. All the other social media networks are also part of it. Facebook is only taking the heat because of it occupies a larger proportion of the market share and plays the leading role in the industry. The rest of the social media world must not see this as a Facebook problem, because it is not, and it must be of concern to all others. This must be a warning to all.