DC attorney general sues Facebook over Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook's week has gone from bad to worse.

Following a report that the social media giant gave more than 150 companies special access to users' personal information, Facebook is being sued by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, writes The Washington Post. This is over a different privacy scandal: the revelations earlier this year that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, improperly accessed users' personal information.

A source told the Post that the lawsuit will likely be amended to take into account the other privacy issues that have come to light since then, and that several states are pursuing their own investigations.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Racine confirmed the Post's report in a statement, saying the suit is about "making Facebook live up to its promise to protect its users' privacy.”

Facebook has not yet responded, but the Post notes that this is the first example of U.S. regulatory action being taken against the company since the scandal was first reported, although there's also a federal investigation underway. CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to users when he testified before Congress in October, telling lawmakers, "It was my mistake, and I'm sorry." Facebook just recently revealed that a bug also gave some apps access to photos that users had not publicly shared; this affected up to 6.8 million users. "We're sorry this happened," Facebook said.