Facebook in Hot Water

Zebiba Denning, reporter

Facebook is now under investigation after a controversial story involving millions of users’ personal information was leaked.

The scandal erupted in Marche weekend when The New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica tried to influence American voters by “using information improperly gleaned from 50 million Facebook users”.

Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica spoke out about the companies controversial practices to The New York Times and the Today Show. He believes that it is important for American citizens to know what companies are doing with their personal information.

Cambridge Analytica is a political analysis firm that claims to “build psychological profiles of voters to help its clients win elections”. The company is accused of buying millions of Americans’ data from a researcher who told Facebook he was collecting it strictly for academic purposes.

Since the scandal, Facebook’s stock was down about 7% Monday afternoon and dropped another 2.5% Tuesday. The company’s market value has shrunk 8% this week.

The company supposedly has close ties to President Trump’s election campaign, including Trump campaign advisor and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. Christopher Wylie told the The New York Times that Bannon was the previously vice president of Cambridge Analytica’s board.

According to CNN, there may be multiple government investigations into Facebook’s privacy practices.