Facebook’s reputation took a serious hit after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out, a hit that the company will likely never recover from. Facebook’s value dropped by over $100 billion as a result, and it looks like the ramifications of the Cambridge Analytica data breach are not over.
The D.C. attorney general, Karl Racine, has just filed a lawsuit against Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data breach which affected around 87 million users, with around 70 million of them being Americans. Citing violations of American consumer-protection law, which have resulted in massive privacy breaches and security risks, Racine plans to throw the book at Facebook. If all goes well, Racine hopes that the result of the lawsuit will be a court order for Facebook to improve their protocols and better their security measures and protection of user data. In addition to that, Racine expects Facebook to pay restitution to users affected by the data breach, as well as pay for costs and penalties.
Facebook is definitely facing an uphill battle on beating this lawsuit, as the company continues to be mired in scandal, with the most recent being a bug that exposed photos of 6.8 million Facebook users to third-party app.
The behavior of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also not helping. In hearings on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg appeared evasive throughout the sessions. He has also refused to appear before courts in several countries who are still concerned about the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
