By: FE Online | Published: March 25, 2018 3:04 PM
After tech czar Elon Musk denounced Facebook by deleting the social media pages of Tesla and SpaceX, Apple CEO Tim Cook has broken his silence on Cambridge Analytica data leak controversy. Cook was attending China Development Forum in Beijing when he spoke about the scandal and called for stricter rules to avoid such untoward happenings in the future. Saying ” “situation is so dire and has become so large” that there is a need for ”well-crafted” regulations to prevent the information of people from being used for something which the individual is not aware of.
Cook further said he and his company had for long apprehended the situation. ” We’ve worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them, that one day something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it,” he was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once,” cook added.
Chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. in a series of Twitter reactions on Friday said he wasn’t aware if a Facebook page for his rocket company existed. Upon a challenge from a Twitter user to delete it, he said, ”will do.” Soon after his comment, Facebook pages of Tesla and SpaceX pages vanished.
Musk is among the high profile tech figures, who have left Facebook after revelations that UK-based Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook profiles of at least 50 million users to influence Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
In the wake of the scandal, Facebook Inc. shares fell 1.1 percent to $163.10 at 1:31 p.m. on Friday in New York. It further slumped 12 per cent since the scandal came to light.
Mark Zuckerberg had earlier took to the social media platform and apologised for the mess and included that steps where being taken on the issue.
“I want to share an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation — including the steps we’ve already taken and our next steps to address this important issue. We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.
“I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it,” Zuckerberg has said in a Facebook post.
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