Well , it ’s at long last over . According toa postpenned tardy Thursday by Facebook ’s Chief Privacy Officer on the company ’s prescribed web log , the social media goliath baffle a Union royal court ’s sign - off on its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission , marking the remnant of a historical case that involved around a full twelvemonth of back and forth with the agency and a $ 5 billion dollarcivil penalty , and more than a few photo ops of Mark Zuckerberg in anarray of courtship . But just because the casing is historic does n’t entail it ’s anything curt of lustreless .
To retread , this is the motor lodge authorization seal off the end of the FTC ’s 2018 probe into Facebook ’s handling of the Cambridge Analytic malicious gossip . When the initial settlement was being position out last year , a number of publication — include ours — level out that the monetary value Facebook was fructify to ante up for violating consumer privacy on a flock scale and irrevocably twist around the political landscape was only $ 5 billion dollars , a figure that definitelysurpassedany fines decree by the Commission previously , but one that still rough totaleda month ’s Charles Frederick Worth of earningsfor the company at the fourth dimension , andeven lessthan that now .
Granted , a trivial penalty was n’t the only thing that Facebook was hit with at the time . The concord also mandate that the fellowship have someone watching over its shouldersfor the next 20 years , contribute an FTC - mandated independent privacy committee to its panel of directors as a way of life to tone down any “ unfettered control by Facebook ’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg over decision affecting user privacy , ” as they said at the clip . As of this authorship — nearly a full class after news show of the settlement first come to — those committee roles still stay unfilled , even as the companyfills up seatson its superintendence board for content moderateness .
Photo: (Getty)
It ’s not hard to see why the relief roles would be snapped up first : The embarrassing egress surrounding hatred speech and extremism are , well , sticky , but they can finally be cope with in a way that does n’t reduce too severely into Facebook ’s bottom line . Privacy issues , not so much . While some advertizer have tried toturn up their nosesat the platform in the past over the company ’s laissez - faire relationship with its consumer ’s personal selective information , the accuracy is the absolute majority justcan’t quit , particularly if they ’re one of thetens of millionsof smaller businesses living and perish by Facebook ’s advert political program .
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