. . .
Facebook also dodged hundreds of questions that the site’s own users had submitted to Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), who then forwarded them to Facebook. Many users sought to understand more about Facebook’s privacy and security practices as well as its handling of controversial content, including posts that sympathize with the alt-right. In many cases, though, Facebook repeated general answers to those queries.
Cambridge Analytica used the data it accessed from Facebook to help Republican candidates target voters with political messages based on psychological evaluations of their personalities, including personal preferences and other information shared on social media.
News reports revealing that Facebook data had been used in this way triggered an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, which is probing whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree on its privacy practices, and also generated sharp bipartisan complaints about data management by the company. Reports about the sharing of data with device makers sharpened that scrutiny.
Under the 2011 decree with the FTC, Facebook is required to obtain permission before sharing a user’s private information with a “third party” in a way that exceeds that user’s existing privacy settings. Facebook officials said that device makers such as Samsung or BlackBerry were suppliers, not “third parties.” On Friday, the social media giant again told Congress it had not run afoul of the settlement.
