By Pascal Oparada
Facebook appeared to be the winner of hearing on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, by US Congress Committee investigating the social network’s culpability over Cambridge Analytica’s mining of over 87 million users’ data using the platform.
The Committee questioned its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, why the platform covered up Cambridge Analytica scandal and if further actions had been taken against the data mining firm after discovering it harvested users’ data without their consent.
Zuckerberg waded through a sea of photographers when he arrived at the venue of the hearing.
Analysts believe Zuckerberg’s responses were terse and did not address the concerns raised by the committee. Zuckerberg sidestepped critical questions and repeatedly told committee members that he would follow up with them on questions he appeared not have immediate responses to.
Each senator had five minutes and a queue of questions to ask and obtain answer from Zuckerberg, they could not tear into the heart of the issue with Facebook, analysts say.
According to analysts, the public failed to get answers to such questions as did Facebook cover up the Cambridge Analytica scandal or decide against adding privacy protections earlier to protect its developer platform? Is it a breach of trust for Zuckerberg and other executive to have deleted their Facebook messages out of recipients’ inboxes? How has Facebook used a lack of data portability to inhibit the rise of competitors? Why doesn’t Instagram let users export their data the way they can from Facebook?
Instead of providing answers to the question, Zuckerberg continued to apologize for lapses he said they were working hard to fix.
The tech giant was rewarded with a jump on its shares on Wednesday.