LatAm List – For the past two years, Facebook has been under fire since political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica released media reports of the US tech company’s misuse of data in 2018. One of the most recent accusations was for improperly sharing user data which resulted in Brazil’s Ministry of Justice fining the social media giant $1.6M (R$6.6M) at the end of 2019.
According to the Ministry’s Department of Consumer Protection, data from 443,000 Facebook users was improperly available to developers of an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”.
The ministry launched the investigation after the Cambridge Analytica episode and discovered that Facebook had failed to provide users with adequate information regarding default privacy settings.
From the moment the accusation was filed, Facebook had 10 days to appeal the decision and 30 days to pay the fine.
Despite the string of controversies, Facebook’s outlook remains unscathed. In 2019, the platform’s stock grew by 50%, and in 2020 it is already over by 5%.
Read more on the Financial Post and Forbes.
