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Facebook’s Market Capitalisation Wiped Out By $36 Billion Over Data Breach Scandal
Can Facebook meddle or otherwise with, or influence, human minds, en masse? (Carl Court/Getty Images)
The shares of internet behemoth Facebook slumped by almost eight percent after media reports claimed that Cambridge Analytica, a big data firm linked to a key financial backer of Donald Trump, may have obtained the personal data of millions of users and harvested it to build psychological profiles to micro-target voters during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The slump in the Facebook's share price was its biggest one-day loss in four years and possibly its biggest drop in value ever. The company’s market capitalisation is currently down to just over $500bn, from $537bn last week.
Official representatives of Facebook confirmed that while the data sharing was entirely in accordance with the Facebook's commercial terms and conditions to UK academic named Aleksandr Kogan, the breach occurred when Kogan, in turn, shared it illegally with Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica may have lied to Facebook about entirely deleting the data. Facebook also announced last week that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica from using its platform.
An investigation by Channel 4 also revealed how the Cambridge Analytica's top honchos boasted of using honey traps, leveraging spies and manufacturing fake news to help its political clients.
Chris Wylie, a 28-year-old data scientist who was previously associated with Cambridge Analytica, has emerged as a pivotal figure in the unfolding of the scandal as he provided whistleblower’s accounts to various media outlets.
The data analytics firm was founded by Trump's erstwhile strategist Steve Bannon and Hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer.
In the United Kingdom, the information commissioner has indicated it will be launching an investigation into the data breach. As part of the investigation, offices of Cambridge Analytica may be searched.
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