Was Your Facebook Data Actually 'Breached'? Depends On Who You Ask

When Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a status update Wednesday on the still-unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, he called it an "issue," a "mistake" and a "breach of trust." But he didn't say it was a data breach. Ever since the news broke this weekend that the U.K. firm Cambridge Analytica obtained information about 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge, the social media site has been carefully avoiding using those words. Executives are profusely apologizing but stopping short of characterizing the situation as a data breach -- a phrase that brings to mind images of hacker frantically typing in a dark room or stolen credit card numbers being shared online. Facebook has 1.4 billion daily users it doesn't want to scare off with the "data breach" characterization. Here's what happened: A few years ago, a researcher put together a Facebook personality quiz that asked participants to download an app and give him access to their friends' data.