Facebook is in crisis over data abuse scandal and harvesting of information was rife, says academic at heart of it

Facebook is in "crisis" over its data abuse scandal, according to the academic at the heart of it. The social network is still struggling to deal with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which arose amid allegations about the misuse of people's most personal data. That scandal – which has been linked to both the Brexit and Trump campaigns – has quickly become about Facebook more generally. The company has been forced to respond to criticisms of its business practises by posting a series of articles online, in which it defends itself in a variety of different ways. It has been forced to admit that it gathers ad data by tracking people around the web, for instance, and has claimed that people are wrong to suggest that users are the product in Facebook's services.