"We Made Mistakes": Zuckerberg Finally Weighs In On Facebook Data Scandal

Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday issued a statement on the growing controversy around Cambridge Analytica's acquisition and use of tens of millions of people's personal Facebook data. In the 935-word statement, Zuckerberg reassures users that "the good news is that most important actions to prevent this from happening again" were already taken in 2014, when the company limited the amount of data that could be acquired by third-party apps on the social media platform. While the statement acknowledged the company "made mistakes," it avoided an explicit apology or the word "sorry." Zuckerberg's move comes four days after the New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica, a company that provides political operators detailed information on millions of voters, obtained data on more than 50 million American Facebook users from a University of Cambridge researcher named Aleksandr Kogan. Cambridge Analytica's connections to Republican megadonor Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, an ex Trump campaign chairman and a senior White House adviser, may have allowed the Trump campaign to access and use the data to target potential voters, according to the Times.