This week, Facebook responded to a lawsuit with reference to the Cambridge Analytica scandal by claiming it isn’t a social network and not somewhere you can make friends.
As Ars Technica reports, the lawsuit was filed in December last year by District of
Columbia (DC) attorney general
Karl Racine. It expressed that
of the 70 million people who had personal data taken
by Cambridge Analytica, 340,000 were residents of DC. Racine is demanding $5,000 in civil
penalties per resident, which
would mean Facebook needs
to pay out $1.7
billion.
As you’d expect, the social network is fighting
the case hard. the reason it’s taken so long for a response to be
forthcoming is as a result of Facebook
spent nearly seven months trying to get the lawsuit dismissed. That isn’t happening due to a federal judge.
Facebook’s response is serious on the denials, with a
“denies the allegations” being stated for most of
the 76paragraphs
contained in the lawsuit filing. Curiously,
one all out denial
covers Paragraph 11, which states:
To begin using the Facebook website, a client initially creates a Facebook
account. The consumer can then add other Facebook consumers as “friends”
and by accumulating Facebook friends, the consumer builds a social network on the Facebook website.
So Facebook is denying it’s a destination that allows consumers to sign-up, add their
friends, and build a social network. I’m pretty positive that’s the functionality Facebook’s entire business model relies upon, which makes this a suspicious and
confusing response. is this a lawyer that’s being a bit seriously handed with
copy-pasting a denial, or some tactic in
law to try and derail
the lawsuit?
Overall, Facebook’s defense against this case comes right down to the actual fact it absolutely was a third-party
and not Facebook directly that improperly obtained personal information. If that isn’t accepted by
the court, then the social network (yes, it’s one) might need to pay out billions, particularly as this case is definitely only getting to be the
first of many if
it proves successful.