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Facebook Data Breach
Facebook has one crucial responsibility – to protect user data. If Facebook fails to protect user data, then the social media giant does not deserve to serve its end users given that the privacy of their personal information is a selling point for technology users.

In 2013, Aleksandr Kogan, a Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience researcher at Cambridge University, developed a personality test app as part of his academic research. Kogan's application was installed by 300,000 people globally who shared their personal information and unknowingly their friends' data with Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook's platform at the time enabled app developers like Kogan to access millions of other peoples' data (Wagner, 2018).

In 2015, Cambridge Analytica, a big-data analytics research firm focused on political consulting, approached Aleksander Kogan to acquire the personal information of 50 million Facebook users illegally. Kogan's company, Global Science Research (GSR), agreed to share the personal information of Facebook users it had obtained with Cambridge Analytica to create personalized political ads and ultimately influence swing voters in the United States. Consequently, when the social media giant figured out that Aleksander Kogan sold Facebook user data to a third party, both Kogan and his app were removed from the platform for violating company policy. Also, Facebook requested certifications to verify that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica destroyed the user data.

Unfortunately, in 2018 an investigation conducted by the New York Times found that massive amounts of user data are still available to publicly to Facebook's developer community. The New York Times investigation hurt Facebook's public reputation because it demonstrated to members of the Facebook community that the social media conglomerate lacks integrity. For Facebook to maintain its diminishing trust with users, the company suspended Cambridge Analytica from its platform and rewrote its terms of service and data policies to restrict developers' data access. It is important to note that Facebook will continue to collect the same amount of information about users but won't share that data with developers and advertising businesses as much (“Cambridge Analytica Harvested Data of 50 Million Facebook Users") (Wagner, 2018).

As a result of Facebook's data breach, prominent figures like Elon Musk, the legendary founder of Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX, deleted his companies Facebook profiles. According to Musk, "I just don't like Facebook. Gives me the willies" (Grant, 2018). When Musk deleted the Facebook profiles of all his companies, he implicitly showed that he does not trust the social networking company with his data. He clarified that the deletion of his companies' Facebook profiles was not a strategic political statement.

Ironically, Facebook sells targeted advertisements to businesses based on user data, which accounts for the social media conglomerates' largest business segment. Given that Facebook wants to maintain its robust advertising-based business model, the company faces a significant challenge moving forward to ensure the trust and privacy of its users (Grant, 2018).

Facebook is actively trying to repair its public reputation and level of integrity with more than two billion users after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. According to Will Rogers, "it takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute."

Works Cited
“Cambridge Analytica Harvested Data of 50 Million Facebook Users.” News Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 17 Mar. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/analytica-harvested-data-50-million-facebook-users-180317202148643.html.

Grant, Nico. “Facebook Data Scandal Has Left Zuckerberg Isolated in Tech.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 2 Apr. 2018, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/facebook-data-scandal-has-left-zuckerberg-isolated-in-big-tech.

Wagner, Kurt. “Read Mark Zuckerberg's Full Statement on Facebook's Privacy Scandal.” Recode, Recode, 21 Mar. 2018, www.recode.net/2018/3/21/17147746/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data-breach-users-video-election.