Facebook changes: How it will look like starting in April|Street Magazine
After days of silence following a massive data scandal, CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally commented on the issue in a Facebook post and later in interviews with Street Magazine and other outlets.
The scandal stems from new reporting that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm with ties to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, which had accessed information from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge, might have kept that data even after Facebook told the company to delete it.
Zuckerberg's
lengthy post laid out a number of steps the company would take to regain user
trust. A secondary post detailed the company's plans for cracking
down on third-party developers that make Facebook apps.
Many of the announced changes will
happen behind the scenes or in settings casual users don't visit often -- or
don't know exist.
App
awareness
Facebook does want to be more
transparent about which apps can see your information, though. Sometime within
the next month, Facebook will promote its Settings page that lists the apps
that have access to your account. It will now give this tool prime real estate
at the top of your News Feed.
When you use Facebook to log into
services like Tinder or Uber, you give the companies access to some of your
personal information. The exact data varies app to app but can include your
name, birthday and email address -- or vastly more personal data, such as
private messages and a list of your friends. The data can help the apps tailor
their services to you.
The app review tool will let you
revoke any app permissions right away. The functionality currently exists on
Facebook's Settings page, but the new prominent placement will mean it can
reach many more people. It's unclear if the tools will look the same.
Close
review
Zuckerberg said Facebook will review
all apps that have been pulling large amounts of data about users since 2014
and earlier. That's when the company changed its policies to limit what
information third-party apps that you use could gather about your friends and
started reviewing apps that asked for extensive data.
If Facebook discovers any other
misuse of personal data, it will ban the app, Zuckerberg said.
"We're going to review thousands
of apps,"Zuckerberg told CNN's Laurie Segall in an exclusive interview.
"So, this is gonna be an intensive process, but this is important.This is
something that in retrospect we clearly should have done, upfront, with
Cambridge Analytica."
Impacted
users
Facebook is working on a "way
for people to know" if their data was accessed by the Cambridge Analytica
survey, the company said in a post. It's not clear if this is something users
will have to proactively search for, as was the case with its tool to inform
people who may have been exposed to content produced by the Russian troll army
that exploited the platform, or if they will be notified.
The company said if it finds others
apps that have misused data in its investigation process, it will take action
to inform all users of that app.
"One of the most important
things we need to do here is make sure that we tell everyone whose data was
affected by one of these rogue apps," Zuckerberg told Segall. "And
we're gonna do that. We're gonna build a tool where anyone can go and see if
their data was a part of this."
Cut-off
time
Facebook is tweaking how it handles
existing apps' access to your personal information. If you haven't used an app
in three months, its access will automatically be removed. New apps that
haven't been through the company's existing review process will not be able to
access anything other than a person's name, profile photo and email
address.
Same
look and feel
Most users don't think too much
about third-party apps. They check the platform for photos and updates from
friends, and scroll past Facebook ads that are based on the vast amounts of
data the company has collected about them over the years. That core experience
will stay the same for the time being.
But by putting a tool on top of the
News Feed that shows everyone what apps they've installed, Facebook is
reminding users that their data is being shared and used. And that could change
how people look at the social network.
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