I Would Pay for the Tape of His Deposition

The Washington, DC Attorney General has added Mark Zuckerberg to the lawsuit that filed against Facebook for their Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The short version is that in the process of investigating Facebook's behavior regarding user privacy, they AG has determined that Mark Zuckerberg far more aware, and far more directly responsible for the policies that led to repeated privacy breaches than was previously known.

This is not surprising, given that in the early days of Facebook, Zuckerberg mocked people who trusted him, "Dumb F%$#s".

It's not surprising that the AG now believes that Mark Zuckerberg was directly involved in this policy, which is really not surprising.  It's been his show for 17 years:

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of scandal-plagued Facebook, might be held personally liable for damages in a consumer protection lawsuit filed in Washington, DC.

DC Attorney General Karl Racine’s office filed a suit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in December 2018 against Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data-leak fiasco, alleging that the social media giant had misled consumers about its privacy policies. Racine announced on Tuesday that his investigation had determined Zuckerberg played a much bigger role in the incident than prosecutors were previously aware, according to the New York Times, and will be adding him to the suit. This would be one of the first times a regulator has tried to find Zuckerberg personally liable for the actions of his company.

The suit claims that Facebook made misleading promises to users that their data would be kept private. In reality, its Open Graph API was so loose with protections that it allowed Cambridge Analytica, a shady political firm that worked with right-wing clients like consultants to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, to run off with extensive info on 87 million users. The DC suit states that Facebook not only gave users false reassurances about the security of their data, but failed to monitor third-party apps’ use of it, deliberately made it difficult for users to control privacy settings, and did not disclose how some apps could override their preferences. Facebook also sat on the Cambridge Analytica leak for two years with no public disclosure, according to the suit.

………

“Under these circumstances, adding Mr. Zuckerberg to our lawsuit is unquestionably warranted, and should send a message that corporate leaders, including the C.E.O., will be held accountable for their actions,” Racine told the paper.

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Facebook can and almost certainly will file to dismiss Racine’s effort to add Zuckerberg to the suit, as it has fought every other element of the case. In September 2021, Facebook shareholders went public with a lawsuit that claims Facebook agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission a multi-billion dollar settlement (which itself was chump change for the company) for the express purpose of keeping Zuckerberg uninvolved in the Cambridge Analytica investigation.

Discovery in this trial should be interesting, and I welcome any embarrassment and shame that results, though huge monetary damages and eventual criminal charges would be nice too.