Apr 4, 2019 - Technology

Zuckerberg addresses new report on breached Facebook user data

Orion Rummler

In this image, Mark Zuckerberg speaks into a microphone. — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images

In a Good Morning America interview on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is "still looking into" a recent report from UpGuard cybersecurity researchers that found large amounts of Facebook user data publicly available on Amazon’s Web Services server.

Driving the news: In the interview, Zuckerberg called for more government regulation as the company works on "major social issues," such as "policing harmful content to protecting the integrity of elections to making sure that data privacy controls are strong." He made similar statements in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post.

What they're saying: In a statement on Wednesday, Facebook told Axios that the developers involved in the UpGuard report were acting contrary to the company's policies. "Facebook's policies prohibit storing Facebook information in a public database. Once alerted to the issue, we worked with Amazon to take down the databases. We are committed to working with the developers on our platform to protect people's data."

The big picture: Facebook has already undergone multiple scandals surrounding user data this year.

Last month, the company acknowledged it had been storing some user passwords on its own servers in plaintext.
And on Tuesday it said it would halt the practice of asking some new users for their e-mail passwords as a means of verifying accounts.

Go deeper: Facebook data found on publicly accessible Amazon servers

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Zuckerberg addresses new report on breached Facebook user data

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