Time to Start Calling it “The Dark Empire” and Regulate it Accordingly | Facebook data leak: Personal data and phone numbers of 533m users stolen and put online

It appears people, governments, regulators and legislators worldwide seem to have forgotten Facebook’s complicit involvement in Cambridge Analytica. It is possible that new priorities such as the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 may have occupied them, and rightly so.

But unprecedented events, including one from 2019 and which unfolded yesterday brought back that nightmare to today’s reality that cannot be ignored. It is reminding us, as people, that we can no longer afford to stick our head in the sand like ostriches.

Did we forget that Facebook and Cambridge Analytica illegally harvested and then manipulated the voters of the UK Brexit vote, the 2016 US Presidential elections as well as multiple African presidential elections.

These were a few out a much longer list of illegal and unethical activities CA president was caught on tape talking about by a Channel 4 TV undercover investigators.

The stink did lead to CA being shut down in the UK but not before the unprecedented practice was out of the bag and 100s of new CA’s were incubated under new names and socially correct ethos.

Moreover, many may not recall Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg hiring former deputy UK Prime Minister,  and Liberal Democrats Party leader Nick Clegg as head of Global Affairs in October 2018.

The hire proved to be a genius manoeuvre by Mark Zuckerberg and the Dark Empire. This is because in early 2019, Facebook “proposed new rules for the internet” and called for more regulation and insisted “it must be regulated”.

But Facebook also called for this to happen, conversation by all stakeholders and governments will be needed to better identify the most appropriate regulation to be considered to then be adopted – In essence Facebook bought itself at least 5 years of “conversation” and averted  “dramatic legislation”, most likely, thanks to the strategic thinking and the experience of how governments run (or are stalled) of Mr Clegg. 

Then, on April 4, 2019, Facebook reported a Data Breach affecting 540 Million Users’ Records worldwide. and announced in had patched the vulnerability that permitted this breach.

The latest saga arrived yesterday. The 533 million compromised accounts in 2019 from more than 100 countries, out of which were 32 million US, six million Indian, and 11 million UK Facebook users, have been shared, for free, on an online hacking forum.

The details that have been leaked include Facebook IDs, birthdates, names, locations and in some cases email addresses.

Although Facebook reported that data was stolen as a result of a security issue that the company patched in 2019, The ‘data set’ was shared on a hacking forum yesterday.

Alon Gal, Chief Technology Officer of internet security firm Hudson Rock, was first to uncover the unprecedented online exposer.

This is not the first time Facebook has found itself caught into compromises and scandals raising louder and louder voices for tighter legislation on the internet global giant, including its break up.

The way I see it, I believe it that the lack of firm legislative action by our legislators, due to stakeholder lobbying, is proving more cancerous to society as time goes by.

I  don’t know about you, but I believe it is time to call Facebook “The Dark Empire” and start regulating it accordingly.

National security and survivability of nations and people’s lives and livelihoods continue being put at unprecedented risk while only Band-aid and Aspirin like regulations continue being offered to tame “The Dark Empire”

I also believe that citizens all over the world must start demanding their esteemed legislators and regulators to start acting decisively on this with immediate effect, or just resign.

The situation is no longer acceptable and people can no longer afford to pay the price of such unregulated cancer.

By Khaled Fattal, Survivability News Publisher’s Corner.